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Samoa managed to cut open Ireland's defence four times. ©INPHO/Colm O'Neill
Review

Analysis: Ireland’s defensive errors an area of concern

Joe Schmidt’s men will have been disappointed to give up four clean line-breaks against Samoa.

MUCH HAS BEEN made of the fact that Ireland have lots of improving to do this week ahead of the clash with Australia on Saturday.

One area where Ireland let themselves down against Samoa was in defence. Schmidt will have been unhappy with his side conceding four clean line-breaks and missing close to 20 tackles. However, Ireland kept the Samoan tryless, so there was clearly plenty of good work in defence too.

There were outstanding defensive displays from the likes of Rory Best, Peter O’Mahony and Chris Henry in the tight, but overall Schmidt will be looking for a far better effort against Australia. As we’ll see in the examples below, the times Ireland did get cut open could have been avoided.

The Kiwi works under the philosophy of constantly improving and always demanding accuracy, so he will have done video work with his team this morning, concentrating on these errors.

Ireland’s line was broken for the first time after just 13 minutes. From a scrum on the left-hand side, Samoa ran a simple screen play with a pass behind a decoy runner. Ireland were opened up due to a combination of Brian O’Driscoll shooting out of the line too early and Gordon D’Arcy allowing himself to be blocked.

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In a situation like this, deep inside the opposition half, it’s generally a smart idea not to rush up too hard in defence. That’s mainly because your back three will be lying deep waiting for a kick, leaving an overlap for the team in possession.

Instead, drifting across the pitch and even sometimes moving slightly backwards in order to shepard the attacking team towards the touchline is a better call. O’Driscoll shot up too quickly on this occasion, taking no one out of the game. Inside him, D’Arcy (circled) needed to do more to prevent himself from being blocked by the decoy runner.

The next example came in the 15th minute from a Samoa counter-attack, which in turn had stemmed from a poor kick by Rob Kearney. The sloppiness of Ireland’s kicking game was a disappointment and directly led to this line-break.

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As you can see above, Ireland are in a two-on-two situation defensively. Unfortunately for Chris Henry, George Pisi was in possession and the Samoan centre used his wonderful footwork to dart outside the flanker. In the screen grab below you can see that Fergus McFadden ‘bites in’ to make the tackle, but he goes too high and gets fended off, allowing Pisi to break the line.

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Just two phases later, there was another clean line-break for the Samoans and Ireland had Kearney to thank for making a try-saving tackle on the powerful Alapati Leiua. Much like the previous two examples, Ireland were in a decent defensive position but a combination of errors cost them.

As you can see in the pic below, Ireland have good numbers in defence. At worst, it’s a 5-on-4 scenario with O’Driscoll pushing across. Again, the touchline should be Ireland’s friend in this example.

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However, once play has run on, Peter O’Mahony gets drawn to the ball carrier and sits back on his heels, as does D’Arcy. That means that when Samoan lock Lemalu passes behind the decoy runner, both defenders are flat footed.

Also, you can see in the shot below that O’Driscoll is attempting to run in behind O’Mahony and D’Arcy to cover the gap. Ideally, the centre would have told the players outside him to drift onto other attackers, while he tracked Lemalu.

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It’s hard to point a finger of blame at any one individual in these situations, particularly as we cannot hear what kind of communication is being made between the players. O’Driscoll may have been screaming at O’Mahony to drift in defence, or he may have said nothing. Either way, Leiua was able to get outside D’Arcy as you can see below.

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The fourth and final example is quite similar to the one above, with Ireland once again in a situation they could have defended. You can see in the screenshot below that it’s a 4-on-3 attacking chance for Samoa, with O’Driscoll, Dave Kearney and D’Arcy in defence, while Eoin Reddan sweeps in behind.

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Again,the touch-line is Ireland’s friend here and they are in a decent position. However, Kearney bites in and that suddenly puts Ireland in trouble. Again, whether or not O’Driscoll has communicated with the wing is the key to knowing what went wrong. Either way, the mistake gives Otto a half-gap to run into.

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O’Driscoll is once again trying to cover in behind the man who has planted his heels and committed to a tackle. Unfortunately, the centre misses his tackle as he sprints across to take out Otto, and the diving Kearney also misses him. The whole incident is compounded when Reddan, the ‘sweeper’ also fails to make the tackle.

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All fours of these defensive mistakes are easily fixable, that is the really positive thing for Ireland. There was probably a lack of communication at times between the players, which is understandable given that this was their first match for Ireland this season.

However, similar mistakes will be punished by Australia with tries and Schmidt cannot afford his side to offer such easy line-breaks for a second game in a row. There is plenty of work for Ireland to do this week but the players themselves will be focused on fixing the problems.

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