SOMETIMES THE STATISTICS don’t tell the full story. Across Saturday’s absorbing 32-19 defeat of France in Dublin, Andy Farrell’s Ireland squad clocked up 38 missed tackles.
On paper, it’s an alarming figure, and you can be sure the Ireland coaching team would like to see that number dip across the remaining Six Nations fixtures against Italy, Scotland and England.
Yet consider the figure against Ireland’s concession of just one try at Aviva Stadium. Clearly, those in green were guilty of failing to find their intended target on occasion but as defence coach Simon Easterby explains, not every missed tackle gets chalked down as a defensive error.
“Maybe (Damian) Penaud and (Ethan) Dumortier had something on their legs, they seemed to be pretty difficult to put down,” Easterby replied when Ireland’s high missed tackle count was put to him yesterday. “They might have greased up for the game.
“It’s partly individual one-on-one work, which the lads have been excellent in doing. But part of it is that connecting and yes, the missed tackle count is too high, but sometimes there would be a missed tackle marked on data but actually what is has done is it’s affected what they’ve had to do; so that missed tackle might result in a turnover because you’ve forced someone to step inside or you’ve forced them to do something you don’t want to do by virtue of the pressure you’ve put on a team.
“So that player might miss a tackle, but actually the effect has been quite effective, if you know what I mean, as opposed to him missing it. But then off the back of that what happens is do we get a chance to slow them down off that next phase? Do we get the chance to turn them over?
I think sometimes the missed tackles need to be put in context. What we actually get from the outcome can be very different to… ‘Missed tackle’ might sound bad but actually the outcome can be different. Obviously we want as few missed tackles as we can get.”
Overall, Easterby was understandably pleased with Ireland’s defensive effort against last year’s Grand Slam winners. Not only did Ireland limit the visitors to one try, they barely gave them a sniff of the tryline – France spending just 57 seconds in the Ireland 22, compared to the nine minutes and eight seconds the home side spent at the opposite end.
Ireland have become a difficult side to score against, and that defensive strength has become a real hallmark of Farrell’s team – Ireland also conceded just one try against Wales in round one. Back in November, they conceded just four tries across three games against South Africa (two tries), Fiji and Australia (one each).
On Saturday, Ireland’s appetite for hard work when they don’t have the ball, built on a ferocious workrate, was evident again.
“I think the players, across the board, value defence,” Easterby continued.
“It’s a huge part of this team. It helps when the head coach is massively into defence as well and knows how important it is. It spreads through the group. We have a couple of really good guys that drive that but across the board the players have a huge understanding and regard for the defensive side of the game, knowing what it can take away from the opposition but also what it can give us as an attacking team.”
So what did Easterby make of that one try conceded on Saturday, a brilliant French effort which saw Damian Penaud go the length of the pitch, via a smart interchange with Anthony Jelonch. Could Ireland have handled that passage of play better?
“No, I think we have to make sure that we go after them if we have a chance, and we did initially, but then we’ve got to make sure we’re not disconnected off the back of that and that’s across the board in all aspects of our game. But certainly defensively against a team that are particularly good when it’s broken field.
“They nearly scored the try of the century against New Zealand a couple of years ago behind their own goal-line and they have the ability to hurt you from deep.
“We could definitely have mitigated and avoided getting to that position where Penaud gets the second touch and make sure that we’re not allowing them to get that far up the field from the position of strength that we were in, and then obviously we’re scrambling and trying to recover and we don’t get to him.
“So there’s definitely things that we could do better but it’s a good attack against a defence that is working hard, but not quite as connected as we’d like it to be.”
Ireland may not have been perfect, but it was a superb team performance which sets them up nicely for a tilt at a first Grand Slam since 2018.
To beat a France side of such quality in the manner they did should further boost the confidence of a side who are currently wearing the tag of world number one with style.
“There was a huge amount of workrate, we scrambled well and we only conceded three defensive penalties (against France),” Easterby added.
“We conceded seven penalties in total but I guess we didn’t give them massive access into our half or into our 22.
“They kicked goals as opposed to going for touch and didn’t spend a huge amount of time in our 22 which is where sides like France can start to hurt teams.
“So, there was lots of positives. A very good attacking team with massive individual threats and we kept them to one try, but on the other side of that there’s plenty to work on and plenty of individual and team fix ups that we can be better at.”
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