IT’S ONLY NINE weeks until Ireland open their Six Nations title defence against England in Dublin.
Saturday 1 February is already looming large for Simon Easterby, who will now step up to be the interim Ireland head coach as Andy Farrell checks in for Lions duty.
Asked yesterday about leaving Ireland for the next eight months or so, Farrell couldn’t resist a joke.
“What do you mean I’m leaving? I live in Sandymount, 10 minutes away,” said Farrell. “I’m not going anywhere.”
In fairness, you’d have to expect that Farrell will continue to work with Easterby on planning and plotting for Ireland, even if it is all in the background as he prioritises his Lions job.
Farrell and co. will review this autumn campaign in the coming days and while they’ll be happy with three wins from four games, they’ll be reflecting on how Ireland need to improve if they are to win their third Six Nations title in a row. No one has done it before, so expectations must be measured against that fact, as well as Ireland’s form.
It’s unlikely that Ireland will be reinventing the wheel before the Six Nations.
The players will be straight back with their provinces next week as the Champions Cup kicks off next weekend. Ireland will have a pre-Six Nations camp in Portugal but even that means only nine or 10 days together, with just four or five pitch sessions so there won’t be much time to change things.
Still, they’re going to be eager to burst out of the blocks on home soil against the English, who beat them at Twickenham in this year’s Championship.
One of the frustrations for Ireland this autumn was that they started poorly against New Zealand, opening with a defeat and a sloppy performance.
“We didn’t start how we wanted to, so a big focus will be going back to our provinces, keeping good habits going, keep improving, and we’ll try and start fast and fly into the first game,” said second row Joe McCarthy last night.
The reality is that the sloppy edge from that New Zealand game was there in the second half against Argentina and particularly the first half of yesterday’s narrow win against Australia.
Ireland had lots of possession and territory in the opening 40 minutes against the Wallabies but couldn’t convert as they strung errors together in clusters.
“There were a number of mistakes, inaccuracies, some due to the pressure they put on us and they’d obviously done their homework around some of our set plays,” said captain Caelan Doris.
“But some were definitely in our control and we need to be better.”
The Wallabies, so well prepared by Joe Schmidt, did make excellent reads but Ireland had basic handling errors under less pressure on other occasions, so this is a theme in their play that they need to iron out.
At half time yesterday, Ireland spoke about how people were “in their own head a bit” and discussed being more direct.
“That was one of the messages at half time,” said McCarthy. “It was the forwards with our carry trying to dominate, maybe with our tip passes opening up on the back of that and the space would open up.
“That was very much a message at half time, the forwards being direct and trying to get a bit of momentum with our carries.”
Again, you sense that message will be repeated before the Six Nations. Ireland are at their best when they combine brutal ball-carrying and smart kicking with their easy-on-the-eye interplay. At times this autumn, it felt like they were overplaying.
The lineout is another area in which they will be chasing improvement. Forwards coach Paul O’Connell will be putting more pressure on himself than anyone in this regard because Ireland are generally effective when the platform is good.
They had a remarkable 24 lineouts against Australia – McCarthy reckons they usually have 10 or 11 in a game – so there were plenty of opportunities to make errors.
The official stats say Ireland only lost four lineouts on their throw but there were some other scrappy wins in there that were difficult to play off.
Ireland scored all three of their tries from close-range lineouts, with Josh van der Flier, Doris, and Gus McCarthy dotting down. That means that 10 of Ireland’s 15 tries this autumn originated at the lineouts in the opposition 22.
“There’s definitely improvement to be had,” said McCarthy. “Today was a bit crazy, there were 24 lineouts so I think we were, on the run, trying to make up some new lineouts and we had gone through all of them about twice.
“We’ve got good success, we had good mauls throughout the year, focused very much on good drill and things like that but we probably slipped away from that in a few games, leaking a few lineouts, a few sloppy bits, but I think it’s been relatively strong enough.”
Ireland’s defence has been good again this autumn, conceding only five tries against some dangerous attacking teams, and the truth is that they’re still doings lots of excellent work in all areas, but there have also been notable errors in nearly all areas too.
They showed their grit in tight battles against Argentina and Australia, two teams who have improved this year, while blowing Fiji away with a strong eight-try performance. They’ve admitted that the New Zealand display was a big disappointment.
“The message initially was that we need to see improvement, we need to keep evolving,” said Doris of Ireland’s aim this autumn.
“Other teams are getting better, we need to as well. That’s been the message throughout.
“You’ve seen it in the results, probably saw it in the first half against Argentina, saw it last week [against Fiji] and against a better side today, we saw it in parts, definitely not in full.”
It’s not the worst place to be but there won’t be too many bullish predictions about Ireland sweeping their way to another Six Nations title at this point.
That might make it all the sweeter if they can pull it off.
Positives of this series.
À number of new talented players blooded. Our defense and especially scramble was very good. Our first phase attack off lineout is excellent.
Negatives. Too reliant on lineout attacks in opp 22 for scores. Phase attack was read by better teams, our discipline and handling at times was awful – too many unforced errors . Most teams are attacking our lineout as it’s perceived as vulnerable and also important to our attacking game so even just making it messy is a big gain for opponents
I think this series has probably gone perfectly. If Ireland had won all their games playing brilliantly we would be going in to the six nations at the top and there’s only one direction to go then. We’d have learnt nothing about ourselves. As things stand we now know that the lineout needs work, as does our ruck speed. I’m not worried about handling errors, every team goes through those blips. We know these guys can catch a ball. At the end of the day we won 3 from 4 playing very average. We’ve unearthed two top class young lads with Izzy also looking good. Couldn’t be in a better position
@anthony davoren: Totally agree, sometimes it is good to lose as you get to repair the things which are going wrong. Right now, we have lots to work on.
France are obviously the favourites by a long shot for the 6Ns with Ireland second. They didn’t lose any of their Autumn games and looked really fresh and energetic around the park. Assuming we beat a weakened English team in Dublin, the other game will be against Scotland, 9th February. Assuming we can win those big games then French game 8th March will be the toughest in Dublin. On current form I guess the French will be favourites, even with our home advantage.
Let’s hope we bring in some of the players from the Fiji game as the youngsters played really well. We need Izzy at 6 and Beirne 4/5. Ryan had a mediocre game. Casey and Crowley had really good games when they came on. As a Casey basher, I must confess that he played better than JGP yesterday. Gus McCarthy really surprised too, in hindsight all of the replacements should have been brought on sooner as they lifted the tempo. An ugly win, is still a win! ;0)))
@anthony davoren: I think our lineout could become a serious issue in this 6n’s. England aren’t great overall but they have probably the 2nd best defensive lineout after thé boks. I expect they will go all in on this against us knowing that this is our major source of scores. If they disrupt us there, they’ll feel they have a shout and I think they’d be right.
@anthony davoren: It is a really good outlook… and whilst I would have liked to see lineout improvement and for Goodman to have had a little bit of influence, it is a work in progress. Now with expectations lowered, Easterby has a chance to roll the dice in the 6N to and still try to win it.
One of our problems in the lineout is the lack of natural jumpers, both Berine and ‘big’ Joe are too easily beaten in the air. In the past, when the lineout was shaken, we reverted back to POM to steady the ship. Unfortunately that option isn’t there anymore. Another issue that was noticed is our fullback, Keenan is not a natural playmaker, when running back at the opposition he rarely passes and now he seems to be kicking balls through for the sake of it. Frawley last week gave us an option of a second playmaker
@Liam23: I think we lack pace in our back 3 which also limits our ability to counter from loose kicks . Compare France b3 and how devastating they are from this situation. Keenan is actually our paciest player. That said our back 3 have other strengths. Hansen needs to be more involved as he has decent playmaking ability. He was very quiet by his usual standards yesterday.
@Michael Corkery: it has been a long lay off for him in fairness. It will take a while for him to have both the confidence and the match awareness back at the top.
@Liam23: I thought Izzy was in the line for the line out role after POM?
What happened to Calvin Nash ?????
@Patrick Mc Inerney: Grew a moustache
@Patrick Mc Inerney: great question. We can’t say Hansen’s form kept him out of the squad.
It’s good to be a team that has the guts to come away from a tight game with a narrow win, instead of a narrow defeat.
I think the team is lacking a bit of ball carrying power. The phase play can really kick into gear if we can get a bit of gain line. This is why I’d favour giving Izzy a good go in the 6 shirt. He fulfils both the line out and ball carrier brief. Also, important to have Aki at 12. If he wasn’t fit then I’d go with McCloskey. It’s not been tried or tested yet, but imagine one of those two with Jamie Osbourne at 13. That would be a big physical test for any opposition midfield.
All good teams have difficult spells and winning when you are only 7/10 requires grit and application. We introduced Sam, Gus, Tom C and Izzy to international rugby and Osborne, Casey, O’Toole got valuable experience. We are still a bit reliant on a mixed line out to get our trys and we probably need a pacy winger to come through but plenty to build on.
For me I’m leaning towards that AF is playing the safe coach …. His selection’s are more or less Copy n Paste of Leinster…. All very fine when JS was at the helm, but we are starting to see cracks in the team and I feel this is where a good coach comes into effect… For me AF is not been more adventurous with the potential of trying out other players…. Make it more competitive… rid of the old stock and bring in fresh meat… it’s easy for Farrell to play safe and scrape results but this will not benefit Ireland for the WC… Maybe we need to look at a new coach ???? Farrell is away now this is the time for change…???
@Den: he’s hardly copy and pasting Leinster. He’s brought in quite a few players who were behind at their province
@Den: wow – that is some hypothesis. So Farrell needs to be 100% wins to keep you happy. The expectations of supporters like you is unbelievable and irrational. Farrell record speaks for itself – we are not SA or NZL. Enjoy these victories- we are in an up cycle thanks in large part to AF. It is
transient as is the way of sport for countries like Ireland. We really beed to get a gripe.
@Den: Not sure if you are a new incarnation of Ray or one of the other trollers. However, that’s a load of BS. Firstly, AF plays Leinster players more than Leinster does, e.g. Prendergast, Frawley, Gus McCarthy, Osborne. Whatever you think of AF he got us a win yesterday, an ugly win. The players are the ones with the ball in hand and they need to protect it more. Some may need to be dropped for dropping the ball in simple situations, however, they had a greasy ball yesterday (least it’s forgotten). Now, if we get beaten by Italy, then maybe then it’s something to consider but we are still number 2 in the world, even after yesterday (to the best of my knowledge).
Do you reckon that’s Healy and POM done now? Or will they be brought on for Six Nations.
@Sam Bingham: both are live options for 6N and both will be playing European rugby in December
@Sam Bingham: Both are probably needed this 6n’s. Healy in order to avoid having to play Porter for 80mins and I suspect that PO’M is seen as perhaps needed if our lineout goes into meltdown during a game. Neither are 80mins options but we’re probably lacking players who can do a similar role.
@Sam Bingham: I expect POM will be an opportunity to play out his career with a stated final game in green in the 6N, especially as we continue to have lineout issues and he’s so reliable on the front. Who knows with Healy. He hasn’t stated his intent to retire whereas POM has.
At least five or Six of the starters had poor provincial form or were coming back from injuries without much game time. It’s not really surprising that we were below par. Plus it was absolutely daft planning to put the game against the ABs first up rather than allow an easier game or two to build up form and confidence.