Seven Things We Learned From The First Seven Rounds In The URC: 7/7

Maul matters

The driving lineout maul continues to be a major attacking weapon and so hard to stop.

Few teams employ it to better effect than Glasgow Warriors who have scored tries from that rolling set-piece in all but one of their BKT URC games this season.

In Round 7, against Munster, all five of their tries stemmed from that area as they picked up a losing bonus point.

It was a similar story versus the Ospreys a few weeks earlier, when their lineout drive was the key difference between the sides, bringing them all four touchdowns in their away win.

The man at the back of the van more often than not is hooker Johnny Matthews who is an expert practitioner in terms of marshalling the drive and when to break away for the line.

That’s helped him lead the way as the league’s top try scorer after the opening seven rounds with eight touchdowns.

Tellingly, there are two more hookers next in the list, with Akker van der Merwe of the Vodacom Bulls and Ulster’s Tom Stewart both on six.

Stewart, of course, set a new league record last season with 16 tries, a number of them stemming from lineout drives.

So there is clearly a pattern emerging here - mauls matter!