Ireland claimed a historic victory over Tri-Nations champions, Australia. The Pool C clash proved to be the biggest upset of this year’s World Cup to date and places Ireland firmly in pole position with Russia and Italy yet to come.
Before the Australia clash, Ireland had only won one game out of their last five. Now, the results of the warm-up games seem all the more irrelevant with Ireland recording two wins out of two so far in New Zealand.
Ireland’s forward pack led by an aggressive front row of Healy, Best and Ross, completely dominated their Australian counterparts in the set piece plays. Highly influential open side flanker David Pocock and in-form hooker Stephen Moore were late withdrawals from the Wallaby starting line and their absence was highly noticeable.
It is almost impossible for any team to win a game of rugby without a functioning set piece.
Australia won only five lineouts during the game. Hooker Polota-Nau had a nervy game, throwing two crooked throws and clearly looked unsettled throwing the ball against Ireland’s formidable defence.
Of the five lineouts Australia won, four of the throws were to the front. The Australian back line struggled to get any real go-forward momentum from these lineouts as the Irish defence had time come forward and cut down the space. Irish forwards and backs worked in tandem to constantly pressure the Wallabies.
Ireland completely overpowered the Australian scrum and won four penalties from the creaking Wallaby set piece. The Irish front row can take a collective bow for their heroics.
Work has gone into the Irish scrum at training and the pack look like a well-drilled, cohesive unit that have got their timing on the “engage” call spot on.
They hit and kept driving forward while scrum-half Reddan immediately rolled the ball into the scrum upon engagement. Never did the Irish pack allow the Wallabies to settle.
Ireland forced three turnovers from Australia’s eight scrums: two penalties for collapsing and another big turnover following Ferris’s tackle on Genia.
After analysing the set piece stats, we can see that Ireland starved Australia of possession of the ball at the source — scrums and lineouts.
In total, Australia had only ten combined set piece plays to attack from and not all were in attacking positions. The Irish pack did a fabulous job of limiting Australia’s options from scrums and lineouts. This in turn made defending a lot easier for the Irish defence, which was another outstanding feature of the Irish display.
Cian Healy’s man-of-the-match accolade was warranted as the prop spearheaded the Irish assault on the Australian scrum, overpowering his opposite man, Ben Alexander, scrum after scrum.
As Kidney professed after the game: “Forwards win matches, backs decide by how much.”
Ireland have shaken the entire global rugby community. The team and management deserve great credit for their historic achievement.
Gavin Hickie, the Lineout Coach, is a former professional rugby player for Leinster, London Irish, Worcester, Leicester Tigers & Ireland 7s.
For more analysis, visit LineoutCoach.com or follow Gavin on Twitter at@lineoutcoach.
