THE CELEBRATION FROM Andy Farrell said it all.
There couldn’t have been a more perfect way to cap off Keith Earls’ 100th appearance for Ireland than the sight of the Moyross man launching himself in to score in the left corner.
The response in the Aviva Stadium was deafening.
While the celebrations were more about the man himself, the Irish performance in Saturday’s win over England included some fine attacking play worthy of praise.
Ireland were far from perfect, with their lineout a particular area of frustration, but this was another demonstration of how good an attacking team they are, with five tries showing their class.
Earls’ score came in swift response to the only English try of the evening, with replacement second row Joe McCarthy pouncing for a turnover straight from the restart.
As we see below, Tadhg Beirne makes a low tackle on Courtney Lawes to open up the opportunity for McCarthy.
McCarthy clearly does enough to convince the match officials he hasn’t been involved in the tackle, so he’s free to jackal for the ball and he shows his strength to ride the clearout attempt from two English forwards.
He then cleverly pops the ball away for Cian Prendergast to gather on the bounce.
Prendergast spins a pass infield and Josh van der Flier makes big gains as England attempt to regather themselves after the turnover.
The English are down to 14 men at this stage after Billy Vunipola’s red card and that means their narrowness is a big issue.
It’s Bundee Aki who exploits it on second phase. We can see above that Aki is scanning the English defence and the options outside him, meaning that when he gets the ball from Conor Murray, he floats a long bridge pass wide to Earls.
Aki had some nice playmaking contributions in this game and will have been pleased to get the ball into space in this manner.
Earls, meanwhile, was able to show he still has sharp finishing skills. He obviously has time and space wide on the left but Earls has to slow down and jump to gather the pass high over his head.
He then has to accelerate sharply upon landing and dive to get the ball down before any of the three English players closing in can get contact on him.
Not only does the finish look cool, but it’s smart work from Earls to ensure he scores without risking a late English intervention forcing him over the touchline.
It’s Earls’ 36th try in his 100 Ireland caps, leaving him 10 behind Brian O’Driscoll’s all-time record, and it was a heart-warming end to Ireland’s win.
Aki provided the assisting touch in this instance, whereas he was the try-scorer for Ireland’s first in the ninth minute, a score that started with Mack Hansen calmly defusing one of several English bombs.
A big tackle from the chasing Manu Tuilagi rocks Hanen as he lands but Prendergast does some good work by getting over the breakdown and resisting the counter-ruck effort of Ben Earl.
It’s the kind of situation where players are often guilty of going off their feet and sealing, but Prendergast fights to stay up, aided by van der Flier. That work means scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park can get the ball away to the left, where he makes a good decision.
Keenan [blue above] might be the more obvious recipient of Gibson-Park’s pass, but the Ireland scrum-half recognises the space wide on the left and instead fizzes the ball straight to Garry Ringrose [red].
Ringrose, in turn, gets the ball into Lowe’s hands early.
Lowe seems to consider kicking the ball ahead into space but then decides to carry, running to the outside of England wing Anthony Watson rather than cutting back inside in what might be the safer option.
Going outside is important because Lowe stretches England that little further, forcing them to work across to their right edge.
As we see above, Keenan and Ringrose do a good job hitting the breakdown and Ireland score on the next phase.
Ireland cleverly used tip-on passes in their pod of three forwards ‘off 10′ against Italy and they do the same in this instance, breaking England apart with their fine decision-making.
The threat of van der Flier carrying invites Ellis Genge to bite in on him [red below]. But just outside Genge, Will Stuart doesn’t adjust to deal with the front-door option of Peter O’Mahony. Instead, Stuart is worried about Aki out the back [blue].
As we saw in the Italy game, the player in Aki’s role here did often have an impact, either receiving the sweep pass out the back or by swinging up to offer an offload option once the tip-on pass had gone.
Clearly, Stuart is concerned about Aki’s potential involvement but he doesn’t realise until too late that Genge is biting in on van der Flier, leaving the door wide open for that deft tip-on pass.
O’Mahony bursts through into space, draws Freddie Steward, and passes for Aki to finish past Ben Youngs.
There was lots of frustration for Ireland in the remainder of the first half as sloppiness crept into their play, but they did grab their second score just before the break.
As with Aki’s score, there were some familiar elements in the Irish build-up as their skill level and decision-making allowed them to break England down.
Ireland had lost the gainline on first phase of their lineout attack but still managed to create an opening off slow ball on second phase.
Ringrose is at first receiver and does a good job of squaring up to Earl, sitting the English flanker down just as he pops the ball away to Lowe running a direct line to the inside of George Ford.
Lowe wins the collision and is able to offload to Keenan, who does the same back inside to Prendergast. Keenan bounces back to his feet and does just enough at the ensuing breakdown to prevent Earl from winning a turnover, then Ireland flash the ball wide left against the recovering English defence.
We know that left wing Lowe has gone roaming, but Ireland maintain width thanks to their 1-3-2-2 attacking structure, as highlighted below.
Van der Flier is again at the heart of the 3-pod [red above] and he sweeps the ball out the back to Byrne, with the out-half passing behind the first 2-pod to Lowe, who throws another pass wide to O’Mahony.
As the ball is going wide to the left, we can see that Ringrose is backing away on Ireland’s right side in order to make sure they maintain width for coming back across.
Right wing Hansen has already gone roaming over to the left but this combination of Ireland’s attack shape and awareness from others like Ringrose is why the Irish wings’ roaming doesn’t leave them narrow.
O’Mahony carries up the left side, with Lowe and Porter getting to the breakdown and Ireland then carry infield through Furlong, who has the option of going out the back but decides to be direct.
As Furlong gets ready to receive the ball in the shot above, we can see that Hansen [yellow] is lined up ‘in the boot’ out the back, although Byrne is arriving there and shifts him into a wider position.
This shows how much Hansen has moved across the pitch, swinging from right all the way to the left and finally into the more central position from where he launches his excellent cross-kick.
After Furlong has carried in the 3-pod, Byrne goes out the back of the 2-pod to Hansen and he makes the perfect decision.
With England closing up on the Irish players in midfield, the space is evident on the right-hand side but it takes great confidence in his skills for Hansen to get the ball there. It’s not something you usually see from a wing.
Hansen’s kick lands ideally into the arms of Ringrose, who is able to step back inside Steward and fend Daly for the finish.
Ireland’s third try came at the end of a multi-phase passage soon after Vunipola’s high tackle was sent for the bunker review.
Initially, it looked like Ireland had spurned the opportunity after one of their clever first-phase lineout plays had created space on the right.
Passes out the back from Aki and Byrne see Lowe get outside Daly and there’s a brief chance to swing another pass wide to Hansen. England have defenders corner-flagging but Hansen would have fancied a cut.
Instead, Lowe carries himself and then looks for an offload inside. The ball goes loose but Ringrose is typically alert to reel it in.
Two phases later, we see a repeat of a play that we also saw against Italy, with Byrne hitting the edge forward in the first 2-pod, who then swivels to pass out the back.
Porter shows his skill here to drop the ball out the back to Aki, who chooses the short option of James Ryan, who breaks Tuilagi’s tackle attempt. It’s a nice wrinkle in the Irish phase play that’s worth keeping an eye on for further development.
Porter shows off a different type of pass a couple of phases later as he tips-in to van der Flier on his inside, with the Irish openside explosively beating Genge and winning the gainline.
Out-half Byrne is next to dart at the line in what was one of his five ball carries in this game.
Ireland want their out-halves to be a threat at the line and Byrne was seemingly determined to offer that last weekend.
McCarthy and Furlong ensure a successful recycle of possession and as Aki then makes another carry to the right, Byrne has worked back to his feet and is scanning on the left-hand side.
England have completely narrowed up and we can hear Byrne screaming, “Jamo!” as he calls for the ball from Gibson-Park.
It’s a lovely bridge pass from Byrne to find Lowe out near the touchline and the left wing has a handy finish.
Byrne also provided the assisting pass for Hansen’s try in the 65th minute, which came after another slick string of Irish passes.
With penalty advantage just coming into play, Prendergast has set up to the right of the Irish ruck as if to carry from Porter’s pass.
Gibson-Park is hovering nearby, doing his best not to attract any attention but he’s a key man, as we see below when Prendergast swings a pass out the back to him at a late stage.
Gibson-Park has replacement centre Jack Crowley as a front-door option [blue below] but opts to pass out the back to Byrne, who then has Ringrose [black] as his front-door option as Keenan swings out the back.
Ireland actually used this play for the very first try of the Farrell tenure back in 2020, scoring off it in their Six Nations opener against Scotland.
Johnny Sexton scored on the occasion above, but last weekend out-half Byrne fired a pass wide to Hansen.
Again, it’s an excellent bridge pass as Byrne goes up over the widest English defender to give Hansen the time and space to step back inside Steward and finish through Joe Marchant’s despairing effort.
Clearly, Ireland’s performance against England wasn’t of the quality they’ve come to expect of themselves but review of these tries underlines that there was plenty of good stuff from a team made up of many players getting their first outings of the season.
Farrell will be asking for more against Samoa this weekend in Bayonne, when the Irish attack will be a big threat once again.
