LAST UPDATE | 7 Jul 2022

Murray Kinsella

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THAT FINAL HURDLE can often be the hardest to negotiate. Sometimes in rugby, it even feels as if you’re starting the race all over again.

It’s one of the great intrigues of the game how teams can find it so difficult to cross the tryline from literally inches out. This is one of the major conundrums for players and coaches alike. So it’s fascinating to watch how teams look to convert close-range possession into tries.

Last weekend, Ireland gave us an early example of one of their apparent policies, although this is far from unique to them. Like so many other teams, Ireland often opt against taking ‘risks’ with their passing or kicking game close to the opposition tryline unless they have a penalty advantage.

For the opening try against the All Blacks, Ireland probed and probed with their very successful narrow ball-carrying tactics until the pen advantage arrived and then they struck with a clinical four-pass sequence.

Jamison Gibson-Park passes to Johnny Sexton, who plays out the back of Robbie Henshaw to Garry Ringrose…

… and Ringrose fixes Rieko Ioane in the same moment as he is popping the ball back inside to Hugo Keenan, who gets outside Leicester Fainga’anuku – who has to swim out beyond Henshaw – for a lovely 10-metre offload to Keith Earls.

Earls’ finish is sharp as he steps back inside Jordie Barrett to power over and reward a brilliant passage of concentrated precision, power, and skill.

Early in the second half, we saw something similar from Ireland in that they played relatively narrow phases close to the Kiwis’ tryline until the penalty advantage arrived, whereupon they broadened their ambition…