Jacob Umaga has been one of the best young players in the Premiership this season. The Wasps fly-half has had some outstanding moments, and was included in the England Six Nations squad earlier this year as a reward.
This try was one scored by him against Gloucester, in their Premiership match earlier this season.
If we break the try down into several stages, we can see how it came about.
Firstly, we see in this image how Wasps fly-half Lima Sopoaga has passed the ball long out to winger Marcus Watson, who is the older brother of Bath and England winger Anthony Watson. Here, Marcus Watson has a clear route through into the Gloucester half, because their defence has come too central. The ball has also just come out of a breakdown situation, which has meant that Gloucester have had to come high up the pitch, and Wasps have been able to get behind them through shifting the ball quickly out to the wing.
If we move the analysis on to the next phase of this try, we see how Watson now has a Gloucester defender in his way. He waits until the last moment, before offloading the ball to Jacob Umaga on his inside. The first defender, in front of Watson, is now committed to the winger, because of the delayed pass. Therefore, to start with at any rate, the fly-half has a clear path ahead of him.
Here is where Umaga turns on the style. You can see how his path originally seemed to be running straight, but a second Cherry and Whites defender has come across to block his path. This is partly because of the natural instinct of a defender to block the path, but also because of what Umaga did.
If we look at the image, we see how the fly-half began by running straight, before sharply turning into the pitch, as the yellow arrow shows. This means that the defender commits to making the move to block him, as the blue arrow shows, and Umaga is then able to run inside him and go through to the try line.
This might not have been the most complex try, but the simple fact is that it wouldn’t have been scored if Sopoaga hadn’t made the pass to Watson when he did; if Watson hadn’t offloaded to Umaga when he did; and if Umaga hadn’t moved to lure the defender out of the space. This is what makes this such a good try.
