Fundamentally, the game of rugby doesn't change all that much, but there are still tactical trends and nuances that come and go in the search for victory.
The question is, what are the trends right now and what can we expect to see at this year's World Cup?
WalesOnline sought out the expertise of a number of professional coaches and players to see where the game was going ahead of the tournament in France.
Here's what we found out...
POLL: How far will Wales go at the World Cup? Have your say here
The power of mauls
Virtually all players and coaches would agree the game of rugby remains a simple one. It's just that there are continually more subtle ways to reach those simple things.
For example, keeping 15 men on the pitch at all times sounds like a statement of the obvious, but so many coaches will still list it as one of the most important things you can do.
That's easier said than done, given how strong mauls are right now and how often a close-range driving lineout can result in a card for the defending team.
Some have been critical of just how powerful mauls have become, with former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith calling it "legalised obstruction".
The general consensus is it's a serious weapon heading into France this year - particularly if you can create variety with dummy mauls and how you use the space they create.
“The hardest thing to defend right now is mauls," one coach told WalesOnline. "There’s very little off-the-top ball.
"Because the maul is the predominant weapon, it’s all either breakout plays that look like a maul, which means if the defence commits too early or don’t commit at all, you go forward and hurt them."
Irish teams in particular have had plenty of joy with dummy mauls and peels that rely on opposition forwards gambling on committing to a maul. One of Ireland's tries against England in the Grand Slam match came from inside ball after a peel to the openside, similar to this Munster score against the Ospreys earlier this year.
The Irish province shape to get their drive going, leading James Fender to get sucked in to joining at the back. Just as he does so, Munster hooker Diarmuid Barron peels off, standing up scrum-half Matthew Aubrey in the line before finding full-back Shane Daly on a switch line to score.
Earlier in the game, the Irish side had managed to isolate Ospreys hooker Elvis Taione on two occasions with similar peels from maul set-ups.
"There’s a lot of tactical stuff around lineouts, with manipulation and lineout delivery in order to get gainline quickly," continued the same coach. "That’s something that has increased in the last 12-18 months.
"Maul defence has become a bit of a lottery. They’ve tried to even it up by being hot on obstruction, but you’re lucky if you get one a game."
As the clips above show, getting so many forwards in one place is even harder right now - making the power of mauls all the more crucial both in practise and in decoy.
"It’s still the simple stuff," added the same coach. "You’re still looking for tight-five forwards willing to bury their head where they don’t belong or not folding around, creating that space."
At a time when defences aren't exactly committing numbers to defensive breakdowns and are largely able to fill the field during phase play, tying up forwards and condensing defensive lines by making teams respect the maul is a reliable way to create red-zone opportunities at the minute.
During Toulouse's Top 14 victory over Racing 92 on the weekend, their opening score came from a maul set-up, with the whole pack being drawn in - meaning the defensive edge is set about level with the inside post.
With plenty of space to exploit, Toulouse overload Racing's edge with options - allowing Matthis Lebel to scythe through the disconnect created by sitting down outside centre Gael Fickou and drawing out wing Juan Imhoff.
"People are using mauls like scrums," said one coach. "They’re trying to create isolated space.
"Once the ball is in the air, you can go hard defensively as you effectively know where the ball is going. You’re trying to have less ball time in air from passes. It’s about more passes, rather than long passes.
"If you look at attacking teams, they’ve either got great physical gifts or they pass the ball a lot. People are trying to create less breakdowns or they’re making the ones they do create very quick."
On the whole, things do appear to be speeding up.
Speed, speed, speed
Building up to the Barbarians v World XV match, former England coach Eddie Jones was placed in front of the country's media once again. Naturally, he couldn't resist what appeared like a little dig at his old team.
"I don’t believe you are going to be able to win the World Cup by just kicking," said Jones, now in charge of Australia. "I don’t believe you can. I can be proven wrong. But I think with the grounds as they are, you are going to need to play more positive rugby.
"Because of the conditions and the speed of the ruck ball. I reckon the interesting thing watching South Africa in November is they started to play a lot more running from kick return and it opened up for their outside backs.
"I think that’s the trend of the game. You have to go quickly. You can’t just play slowly."
Away from Eddie being Eddie, there's a general consensus among players and coaches that ruck speed is getting faster. The reasons why? Well, opinions differ.
Some, frankly, don't really know. One international believes the increase in speed of ball comes from looking to secure ball, rather than trying to affect the defensive line with deep cleanouts that drive players beyond the ruck.
They referred to the 'speed over shape' ideal that Nick Evans implemented at Harlequins and England, whereby the emphasis is more on getting the ball away from the ruck when the defence isn't set rather than focusing on if the attack is ready.
“The Aussies are the same and I know England wanted to do it," said the player. "The reason Nick Evans got the England job was because Quins conceded the least amount of turnovers in the 2021 season.
"They’re not so bothered about deep cleans. They worry about sealing the ball off. It negates the jackaller and gets the nine to get the ball away.
"It’s simplistic - first person there, seal the ball and keep it."
One coach believes that deep cleans still have their place, in terms of interrupting the defensive fold and making that deeper. They add: "People talk about the breakdown but ultimately it’s the bit before that. It’s a race to the space. The threat always comes from the inside.
"You need to be able to either negate the contest early and seal like Exeter or Leinster, joining contact before you hit the ground. Or like a Munster, you blast the ball and go deep.
"The danger is you’re trying to commit people into a space where they commit to a breakdown that is over. I think people are very mindful of that space and are tactically better at exposing it.
"The big thing is getting people either in a breakdown or slow to fold, exposing people that want to challenge something that is over. The thing with the breakdown, they’re trying to make one-vs-one carries.
"It’s all about carry height, dynamic punch through the ball. Whether it’s a physical mismatch or footwork, it’s all about winning that half-yard and presenting the ball on your terms. That’s not changed. We’ve just got better athletes."
That idea of generating one-vs-one carries is why Wales reverted back to a favoured Warren Gatland 2019 tactic towards the end of the Six Nations, using strike-runners like Rio Dyer and Josh Adams as pick-and-go options from early phase rucks.
'Death of the pendulum' and space in the middle
For all Jones' talk of a kicking team not winning the World Cup, his Wallabies side will likely rely on the boot as much as any other.
As one coach told us, the likes of Australia, New Zealand, England and France will all probably look to use the Pressure Plus framework - playing a minimal amount of phases in their own half, being willing to play around halfway and then looking to use a mix of kicking off the front foot and spreading it wide in the red-zone.
Certainly, how teams kick will be crucial, with the 50:22 having an impact on how teams defend the backfield. Coaches and players are split on whether the new law has had the desired effect of reducing the numbers in the frontline defence.
"This 50:22 hasn’t done what people think it has," one club coach told us. "It’s kept two in the backfield, but it’s not doing anything to the frontline in our experience. You’ve still got scrum-halves in there."
Not everyone feels that way, with one experienced international believing it's made a big difference to how teams defend, particularly around halfway. "There’s been a lot of rules that have been sacked off quite quickly, but the 50:22 has made a difference," they said.
"People think you’ll kick more, but what you’ll actually do is, if you’ve got a scrum in your own half, teams traditionally defend with your 10, 12, 13 and wingers. Either your winger comes front-line or he drops off.
"But with the 50:22, it’s impossible for your winger to be frontline and more aggressive to shut running plays down. Immediately he has to be off or separated from the 13 which allows you to shift the ball and move into a running play rather than try for a 50:22.
"All of a sudden, you’re seeing players run from scrums, particularly in their own half, as teams are marking up for 50:22s.
"You can’t be that aggressive from scrums anyway, but more so now. If you’re playing a real power team, you’d almost rather give them those early metres by hand because you’ve had to drop off rather than give them an easy 50:22 and defend a close-range lineout.
"You’re looking at things differently. Your wings and 13s have to be a lot more passive than they were before the rule came in."
"That’s changed. We used to operate with the pendulum. 10 and 15 would be the main two back there and work in twos for the whole game. Now, there’s more break ups in play and more emphasis on counters and winning the ball back from kicks.
"Now, you might have a nine or winger back there as well. You’ve got wingers in that pendulum systems who maybe aren’t as comfortable. So there’s opportunities to manipulate things as there’s players in positions they don’t want to be.
"You can find kick space or the option to shift the ball. Just because you’ve got two guys back there, doesn’t mean you’ve got a pendulum in place."
So we might see more of 13-2 defences, rather than traditional pendulums, in France. What's interesting is what other space the threat of 50:22s can create.
The same player spoke of one trend coming into the game being "a lot more emphasis on kick plays, but not necessarily on first phase".
Instead, teams might put boot to ball after two or three phases, when you've seemingly settled into a rhythm. In particular, hiding forwards out in wider channels until you decide to pull the trigger.
In this year's Six Nations, Italy threw some chaos at England as they chased the game at Twickenham, taking a quick lineout from deep and spreading it to the far touchline. As they seemed to settle back into fairly structured play, England's front-line defensive set-up was fairly narrow, with their backfield cover deep.
With Italy having kept lock Federico Ruzza stationed on the touchline, he's in place to take Tommaso Allan's cross-field kick-pass in space.
Equally, one coach believes that there could be other space to exploit, explaining that "once you get into phase play, if you’ve got those two corners to fill, then the kick space is in the middle".
We saw that in Rome when Wales won against Italy earlier this year. With the Italian's struggling with their backfield cover, Owen Williams elected to just boot to ball directly down the centre of the field. The goal-line dropout means teams can't rely on grounding it behind their own line for an easy exit anymore, meaning Italy clear under pressure.
That's a fairly rudimentary example, but we could see teams exploiting the space in the middle with chips or grubbers back against the grain after pulling backfield cover to the edges.
The Crusaders did that to great effect against the Highlanders earlier this year, with centre David Havili chipping over the top for fly-half Richie Mo'unga to score.
Rugby's newest 'set-piece'
If coaches and players are split on how the 50:22 has actually worked out, then it's the opposite for the goal-line dropout.
It doesn't provide defending teams the ease out of a 22 dropout, meaning sides have to run the ball back from deep. But, defensively, it also gives you another option near your own try-line.
"You’re seeing defenders tactically dragging them over their own line and holding them up, rather than defending aggressively, because it puts distance between the attacking team and the line," said one coach. "That’s the interesting contest for me, because there’s an advantage to dragging someone over the line defensively, but the other team can attack from that restart."
In effect, it has become like a set-piece, given how an attacking team can plan their next few phases of attack from the restart. No one does that better than Ireland and Leinster, with a coach noting how they tend to have a "set-up of two nominated carries, then something different on the third phase".
Against France in the Six Nations, they didn't even need the third phase, throwing in something different after after the first ruck. From the dropout, they hand the ball off to Caelan Doris, who carries into the French kick-chase.
That initial carry is just to set up the intricate play from the ruck, with Conor Murray giving a short pass to a static Finlay Bealham before moving to loop around the prop.
As Murray does that, full-back Hugo Keenan runs a hard line inside Bealham past the edge of the ruck, with the ruck pillar having drifted across to the threat of Murray.
It's the sort of detail that has come to typify Ireland in recent years and the goal-line dropout gives teams the perfect opportunity to manufacture these multi-phase strike-plays.
Wales have shown some signs of trying to use this 'set-piece' themselves, but so far it's largely been based on generating a linebreak immediately from the kick.
Against Ireland, we saw Wales spread it through two pairs of hands to get the ball to Joe Hawkins in a different part of the pitch, seeing if the centre could find space for the outside backs against any loose forwards. It didn't work on that occasion, with little variation of lines around Hawkins.
By the time they got to Rome, there was a little more deception there. Liam Williams follow his pass to Hawkins, running a support line from in to out.
That drags in the edge defender, allowing Hawkins to pick out Josh Adams with a miss-one pass across the face of Williams.
What will be interesting to see if Wales plan something similar in France this year, without Hawkins, or even if they look to build something over multiple phases.
It's certainly a facet of the game that all sides will be looking to get plenty from. Perhaps more than anything, this could be the one area of the game to watch out for in France later this year.
READ NEXT:
