THE MOST INTRIGUING decision Andy Farrell made on Saturday in the win over Italy was to send Ciarán Frawley on at out-half, with Jack Crowley shifting to fullback.
It happened as early as half time but only because starting number 15 Jimmy O’Brien was having trouble with his shoulder and Ireland didn’t want to take any risks. Perhaps we would have seen it later in the game otherwise.
What was interesting was that Crowley was the one to move, rather than Frawley slotting in at fullback, where he can also play. There are a couple of ways to look at this.
The first thought is that Farrell wanted Crowley to re-familiarise himself with the fullback role, having last played there a long time ago with Munster and never for Ireland. As we’ve seen with the New Zealand, England, and Samoa World Cup squads, if you’re bringing three out-halves, it helps when one of them can play another position. Owen Farrell [centre], Beauden Barrett [fullback], and D’Angelo Leuila [centre] are in that mould.
So Crowley having 40 minutes at fullback helps him to tick the box marked ‘versatile,’ given that he has also played at inside centre for Munster.
If you’re thinking of a first-choice matchday 23 with Crowley on the bench primarily to cover out-half, it also helps to be confident in his ability to play at fullback, all the more so given Farrell’s occasional habit of picking a centre in the number 23 shirt. Given the sheer importance of the bench in rugby now, these considerations are crucial.
On the other hand, you could see this as a hint that Frawley is in the frame to be the third out-half option for Ireland, also offering versatility. That would mean one of Crowley or Ross Byrne missing out on the squad. It seems crazy to think now, but let’s not forget how far up the pecking order Frawley was before an unfortunate injury last autumn.
After being the out-half in two midweek games against the Māori All Blacks last summer, Frawley started at 10 for Ireland A against the All Blacks XV in November but suffered a bad knee injury in that game, denying him a near-certain debut in the Test against Fiji.
He was back in the Ireland squad as soon as he was fit towards the end of this year’s Six Nations, so clearly Ireland’s coaches rate Frawley. Speaking after Saturday’s game, Frawley said he has been training at 10, 12, 13, and 15 with Ireland in pre-season. That’s about as versatile as it gets.
Still, leaving one of Crowley or Byrne out seems a little unthinkable. Byrne played in all five games of the Grand Slam campaign this year, starting the Italy win, while Crowley added to his growing reputation last weekend. He delivered a good performance in the win over Italy.
Whatever about the possible shape of Ireland’s final 33-man squad, it’s obvious that Crowley has to be part of it.
His first-half display at out-half against Italy was impressive, including some strong kicking. His very first contribution to the game was an excellent short restart that saw Ireland regather possession, which was important after Italy had opened the scoring.
Restarts don’t generally get much attention, but this is a fine effort from Crowley with a lengthy hang time of more than four seconds.
Just a couple of phases later, Crowley goes back to the boot.
This time, the Ireland out-half launches a garryowen into the middle of the pitch. It’s another excellent strike as he gets huge height on the ball, with a hang time of nearly five seconds.
The ball also drops outside the Italian 22, meaning they can’t mark the ball. Crowley’s kick allows Robbie Henshaw to get into the contest and though Italy fullback Tommaso Allan just about wins it, the quality of Crowley’s kick is clear.
Crowley had two other kicks in the first half that showed how his power also allows him to get good distance.
In the case below, Crowley does superbly to ‘find grass’, meaning he gets the ball to bounce so Italy have to turn back to get it.
Allan has to turn to gather on the bounce, so he has less time for his own kick as Keith Earls chases upfield. The Italian fullback finds touch just beyond his own 10-metre line. As such, Crowley’s kick gains over 25 metres for Ireland and hands them a good attacking platform.
The exit kick below is also impressive given that Crowley is right in the middle of the pitch, so obviously quite far from the touchline.
Again, he generates great power to find touch a few metres from the halfway line. It’s a superb kick from that position.
These kicks are among the reasons Ireland boss Farrell felt Crowley “controlled the game very well” in the first half.
Controlling a game also involves being a central organiser and distributor in attack and Crowley showed lots of good signs in that regard too. There was good variety in his decision-making in phase play as he looked comfortable connecting with pods of forwards around him.
In the instance below, he splits a pod of three forwards and makes a good decision to pass to Ryan Baird on the edge of the pod, targeting a hint of space as Italy worry about Earls out the back of Baird.
Crowley generally took these front-door options well and Farrell was pleased that he didn’t “overplay” by forcing the ball wide before there were genuine opportunities to do so.
Of course, Crowley is more than capable of gunslinging in that regard and we later saw a sharp wide pass off his left hand to O’Brien.
In this instance, Crowley sets up in behind the pod of three forwards, with hooker Rob Herring – who had a fine game – sweeping the ball out the back to him. Crowley lifts a nice bridge pass up over two Italian defenders to find O’Brien.
Crowley is confident in this slot ‘in the boot’ behind pods of forwards or running out the back of midfielders in order to give himself a little more time as the second receiver. He handles the pressure of shooting defenders well and has good strength to ride tackles when he needs to buy time.
He’s generally ambitious in having cuts at the defensive line himself too, as in the case below on a scrum starter play.
Stuart McCloskey plays out the back of Henshaw and though Italy centre Tommaso Menoncello reads off Henshaw to tackle the out-half, Crowley is able to get a big gainline success before presenting the ball cleanly.
One of the main frustrations for Crowley in this game was losing the ball in contact three times. Even if he strongly disputed one of them, arguing that Italian hands in the ruck were responsible for the ball bobbling loose, three turnovers won’t be acceptable to him.
Whatever about those uncharacteristic losses of possession, we know that Crowley is game in contact. He’s not a huge man at 6ft 1ins and around 90kg but he’s strong and aggressive, among the traits he shares with Johnny Sexton.
Watch how his excellent chop tackle on Menoncello below allows Caelan Doris to win a turnover penalty.
Crowley was also integrally involved in McCloskey’s first-half try.
First, he chops in low on Juan Ignacio Brex to help ground him as McCloskey fights to strip the ball.
The first two Italian support players are desperate to clear the threat of McCloskey away and that opens the door for Doris, as well as Crowley – who also recognises the opportunity.
Doris floods in to smash Italy scrum-half Stephen Varney as he scoops up the exposed ball, and Crowley is right in behind him.
As we see above, Crowley piles into the counter-ruck with Iain Henderson, Doris, and Dave Kilcoyne.
That leaves the ball on a plate for McCloskey to pick up and dive over for the score.
Indeed, it was some of Crowley’s defensive work that caught the eye as much as anything else when he moved to fullback.
His appetite for getting involved physically was obvious in a number of instances when he was asked to close up from the backfield to the edge of Ireland’s frontline defence, as in the example below.
Technically this is good work from Crowley, as he uses his right arm to slap down the fend attempt from Lorenzo Pani. That obviously means Crowley isn’t pushed away, but also that he has his left side free to lead into the tackle on Pani.
As impressively, Crowley then bounces back up onto his feet and snaffles replacement scrum-half Alessandro Fusco before he can get the ball away.
Again, it’s not as glamorous as some of the other stuff he does but this kind of defensive attitude from Crowley is important.
Ireland’s second-half performance was a stuttering one but we did get a few glimpses of what Farrell wanted to see with Frawley and Crowley on the pitch together at the same time.
They connected most notably in the build-up to Doris’ second try.
Frawley is at first receiver and splits a pod of two forwards as he goes out the back of Tadhg Furlong to Crowley, who has swung late into position along with right wing Earls.
Crowley then goes out the back of Baird, passing across the face of Paolo Garbisi to Earls, and Ireland are away into space down the left. Crowley is hit by an obvious late tackle for his troubles.
In the earlier example below, it’s fullback Crowley who sets up at first receiver and connects with Frawley out the back as Ireland explore the wide option.
Otherwise, Ireland’s sloppy second half meant they didn’t get much flow in attack and we didn’t really get to see the value of having both Crowley and Frawley on the field together.
There were bits and pieces for Crowley to improve upon. The aforementioned turnovers are top of the list, while he had one poor pass in the second half that resulted in Stockdale shipping a heavy hit. He would have been disappointed to miss one of his four conversion attempts, given that it was very kickable, but the other three shots at goal were good.
On the whole, this was another impressive outing for Crowley as his star continues to rise. While the return of Sexton from his suspension will be crucial when Ireland kick off their World Cup campaign, Crowley’s growing confidence is reassuring for Farrell.
Byrne will hope for a start against England to remind the Ireland boss and everyone else of his qualities, and the credit he has in the bank from the Six Nations counts for a huge amount.
While Sexton has dominated Ireland’s number 10 shirt for more than a decade, there’s never a dull moment in the depth chart.
