Ryan Bailey reports from the Aviva Stadium
AFTER THE HEADY heights of 2018, nothing quite like a heavy defeat to the old enemy to bring Irish rugby crashing back down to earth with a bang. It was a chastening evening in every sense of the word at Lansdowne Road.
Straight up, Ireland’s hopes of securing back-to-back Grand Slam titles are over at the first hurdle, while the manner and scale of the defeat means Joe Schmidt’s side face a huge task to even retain their Six Nations crown in 2019.
Not only was this a first defeat in 13 Tests, and first at home in six championship campaigns under Schmidt, but just the second time Ireland have conceded 30 points at home under the Kiwi’s watch — the last was the 32-15 loss to Australia back in 2013.
After 18 wins in the last 19 outings, including that indelible conquering of the All Blacks here just three months ago, this was a serious reality check in this, a World Cup year. The 50,000 or so inside the Aviva were left stunned.
Ireland were bullied physically from the off by an English side who not only stuck to their word, but were tactically sound and exploited the hosts’ weaknesses, notably kicking in behind sublimely to stretch Ireland in the backfield.
Eddie Jones’ side won the aerial and physical battle hands down, while their aggressive linespeed in defence prevented Ireland from getting any sort of stranglehold in the game, Schmidt’s side committing uncharacteristic errors.
The visitors sent out a significant statement of intent on the opening weekend, scoring four tries in Dublin through Jonny May and Elliot Daly and Henry Slade’s second-half double, to ignite their championship aspirations.
“I think they were just a bit more pumped today for whatever reason,” Conor Murray said afterwards. “We’ll go through it and find out why that was. We had a great two weeks of preparation but for whatever reason, we were a little bit off it today and they’re a top side. They fairly deserved their win.
“When you’re chasing a game like that, errors get seized upon and they took advantage of that. I thought England were really good, especially in the air. They cleaned up in the air and we struggled to get in a contest today. They took advantage of that. They kicked really well and overall we were fairly beaten.”
Among the many disappointing aspects of Ireland’s off-colour performance was the slow start, as England seized the early initiative through May’s far-corner score.
While Schmidt’s side, ranked second in the world, rebounded strongly to take the lead through the boot of Johnny Sexton and Cian Healy’s fifth international try, Ireland fell short in so many areas.
The green shirts struggled to gain front-foot ball in the face of a brutal showing from England’s forward pack, and even Murray and Sexton — on the occasion of their 50th Test start together — were far from their best.
“We are a very realistic group and we don’t get ahead of ourselves,” the Munster scrum-half continued.
“After a defeat like that, while it looks quite bad it’s small things that will need fixing. We were just a bit off, a little bit flat and at the start we gave England — they overthrew at the lineout, got momentum and eventually scored.
“That was a quick way to give them front foot in to the game and they grew at that. They’re a top side and they put in some really good hits out there.
Your errors are going to be taken advantage of when you’re chasing the game and they did that with Slade’s intercept late on. I thought we could have managed the game better…I don’t know, we’re going to have to review it.
While England enjoyed dominance in pretty much all facets of the contest, the visitors consistently won collisions — they made 48 dominant tackles to Ireland’s eight — and bullied the home side into submission while playing a smart, but aggressive, territorial game.
It was a wake-up call for Ireland seven months out from the World Cup, and Murray hopes they will take the lessons from tonight going forward.
“You can spin it and look at it as a positive,” he said.
“You don’t feel like that now because it’s a loss and it’s tough to take but we were off a little bit, probably physically to start things off, there’s no science to it, we were just off it a little bit, we didn’t front up and just lost the collisions.
“That was that in a nutshell, obviously there are other areas we want to look at but physically we know we can be there, we can be up at that level, we were just off and we’ve got to sort that out. I’ve full confidence in this group, I genuinely do.
“We’ll have a hard look at ourselves. We are an honest group, we’ll regather ourselves and go again.”
You’d expect a response from Schmidt’s side against Scotland at Murrayfield next week. They need it.
“This group has been through good days and bad days and we’ve bounced back well and we’re going to have to really fight this week and dust ourselves down,” Murray added.
Not feel sorry for ourselves, we know we’re capable of big performances, but we were just a bit off.
“I think the players are going to drive it as much as Joe and the coaching staff [this week]. We are bitterly disappointed as a player group that demand high standards and we didn’t meet that this evening.
“The coaches will review the game and give us solutions and things we can work on but as a playing group, we are going to be honest with ourselves and drive it ourselves. We want to get this back on track.”
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