IN TRUTH, IT would have felt like a steal for Ireland to win in Twickenham yesterday.
Yet there they were, 22-20 up with just over six minutes of the game remaining as England kicked the restart after James Lowe’s second try.
So what happened next?
Bundee Aki caught George Ford’s restart and was tackled on the left-hand side of the Irish 22 where they immediately set up for a box kick.
Scrum-half Conor Murray keeps the ball on the pitch and lands it close to the halfway line.
It’s a good kick that is made an excellent kick by the chase from Hugo Keenan.
England fullback George Furbank has to pass as Keenan hares forward but when Marcus Smith tries to step back outside Keenan, the Irishman adjusts to make an excellent tackle.
Smith offloads to scrum-half Danny Care who finds Elliot Daly but Ireland are swarming forward with energy and tackle Daly inside the English half.
This goes down as a highly successful Irish ‘exit’ as they clear the ball out of their territory and into the English half.
Most teams look to clear their own 10-metre line as a starting point so this is fine work.
But having put themselves into a promising position, Ireland concede a penalty on the next phase.
England hooker Theo Dan carries aggressively and is tackled low by Ireland lock Iain Henderson, who ends up being penalised for not rolling away.
Caelan Doris is the man jackaling for Ireland in search of a turnover and his presence means Henderson has to be squeaky clean. Having tackled Dan, Henderson doesn’t clearly look to roll away towards the touchline. It happens quickly but Henderson – who has just had two key involvements in Lowe’s second try – is in the way of the ball.
Dan is only too happy to push the ball into Henderson and referee Nika Amashukeli is fully within his rights to penalise Ireland.
England have a brief chat and with Daly putting his hand up for a shot at goal, Maro Itoje – who has taken over as captain – agrees. Daly is wide to the right from just inside his own half.
Lowe catches the ball and rather than just clearing immediately, Ireland look to eat up a few more precious seconds by dotting it down in their in-goal for a 22-metre drop out.
Ireland are in no rush to take it and out-half Jack Crowley eventually kicks more than 30 seconds after Lowe has caught the ball.
Unsurprisingly, Crowley kicks as long as he can down into the English half with less than four minutes remaining on the clock.
Smith fields the ball and hits back row Chandler Cunningham-South for an aggressive carry back at Ireland’s chase line.
Tadhg Beirne makes a low tackle on Cunningham-South to ensure Ireland have exited up to close to the halfway line, another good result, but England show purpose on the next phase.
Slick handling from Itoje and Smith moves the ball to Daly…
… and Daly then swings the ball wide to Tommy Freeman, with the ball bouncing up to the left wing.
Jack Conan, Murray, and Jamison Gibson-Park attempt to hold Freeman up for a choke tackle turnover but there’s a clever intervention from Ben Earl.
Watch below as the English back row basically tackles his own team-mate, ensuring that Freeman’s knees hit the ground.
That means referee Amashukeli views the tackle as complete, so he calls for the Irish defenders to release.
They respond well and avoid giving up a penalty, so England play infield. Rónan Kelleher and Ryan Baird make good tackles on the next two phases as Ireland deny England the gainline but then Ireland get passive.
With Doris and Cian Healy both commited in towards the breakdown – perhaps one man too many – Ireland are a little slow to get an extra defender folding to the far side and as we see below, that results in the defence failing to get off the line with any aggression.
It’s always hard to generate major linespeed from a midfield ruck but sitting off to his extent is an invitation to England and they accept.
Smith darts forward before passing to Cunningham-South, who dominates the collision with Beirne and Robbie Henshaw, allowing him to offload back to Smith who cleverly swings up outside Cunningham-South.
Smith makes it into Ireland’s 22 before he’s taken down by Bundee Aki and Keenan.
Still, opportunity beckons for England having broken the Irish defence.
There’s now no one covering in behind for Ireland, with Kenan having been drawn up to tackle Smith, and England scrum-half Care opts to grubber kick on the next phase.
Centre Ollie Lawrence and hooker Dan have quite possibly called for the kick as we can see them getting on the chase even before Care kicks but it’s unsuccessful for England as Doris gets his left foot to the ball.
It’s a crucial intervention and Ireland breath a sigh of relief as Henderson falls on the richocheting ball.
Ireland carry infield for one phase to open up a better kicking angle and then Murray passes back to Lowe, who uses this big left boot to clear this time.
Having just conceded a big linebreak and managed to recover, this is possibly a kick that Ireland could have benefited from finding touch with.
There is already some fatigue from the ball being in play for over a minute and it’s always going to be difficult to get a convincing chase after retreating to deal with a linebreak.
Ireland’s chase lacks great energy and that’s why England are able to make a positive kick return, with Furbank fielding and passing infield for Earl to surge beyond Ireland’s 10-metre line.
So this one goes down as an unsuccessful exit for Ireland with England making it over the Irish 10-metre line before being tackled.
The home side sense a chance down the left-hand side on the next phase but Ireland scramble superbly in defence.
Henshaw, Gibson-Park, Conan, and Murray do an excellent job in scrambling, with Murray tackling Furbank into touch.
That means Ireland have a lineout with 78:07 on the clock as the game is paused for Cunningham-South to receive medical treatment and hobble off injured.
This break gives Ireland time to consider what they’ll do from the lineout. There is even time for a message to come down from the coaching box. The collective agreement is that they will box kick after a carry off the lineout.
Ireland start with a brave 5+1 lineout that sees Doris join from the receiver position after Kelleher’s throw and help to lift lineout caller Henderson at the tail.
Baird then breaks off the maul set-up and passes to Conan for the carry.
Murray asks Amashukeli, “Inside, yeah?” to confirm that he can now kick straight into touch from inside the Irish 22. The referee confirms that’s the case.
There’s 89 seconds left on the clock as Murray initiates his box kick.
Decisions like this one from Ireland always draw ire but there’s sense to it. The majority of teams would have done the same in Ireland’s position.
89 seconds might not seem like that long but the average passage in rugby lasts around 30 seconds. A lot can go wrong even in that short time. England would have ferociously thrown themselves at any attempt by Ireland to just keep the ball here. Obviously, a turnover in their own 22 would have been catastrophic for Ireland.
There’s also the fact that referee Amashukeli would have been laser-focused on Ireland being legal at each ruck. Match officials are generally extremely stringent on teams trying to run the clock down, Ireland learned all the way back in 2013 against the All Blacks when Nigel Owens pinged them for sealing off at the breakdown. And that was inside the New Zealand half.
So kicking in this situation makes sense. Ireland could have tried to play four or five more phases to run the clock down, then kicked the ball out, but we’ll never know whether that would have worked. Had they attempted that and been turned over in their own 22, they’d have been lambasted as idiots.
Ireland decide to kick with reason but it’s a relatively poor kick from Murray.
As we can see, the kick leaves Ireland to defend inside their own 10-metre line so it’s another unsuccessful exit in a game that featured too many of them from Farrell’s side.
It means Ireland face one last defensive set as England throw into the lineout with the clock at 79:07.
England shorten the lineout to a four-man and Ireland are unable to apply pressure after being beaten by the English dummy movement.
We can see Murray appealing for a dummy throw from Dan but Ireland are always unlikely to get a call like that in these moments of the game.
England play off the top and move the ball wide to Daly.
Daly passes on to Furbank and as Henshaw initiates the tackle on the England fullback, watch how several of his Ireland team-mates swarm in towards the contest.
Conan joins the tackle as Ireland again go for the choke, with Doris, Lowe, Keenan, and Kelleher all attracted in too.
Ireland seem to be completely transfixed by this chance to make the game-sealing turnover but it proves damaging as Furbank fights hard to get his knee to ground while Henry Slade and Daly target Irish tacklers.
We can see above how many Irish players are left around the breakdown as Amashukeli calls the tackle as complete and tells Ireland to release. Several of them haven’t even been physically involved but they’re not set for the next phase.
Ireland pay the price in painful fashion as they’re left exposed in the shortside, into which Smith swings cleverly to send wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso surging outside Aki.
While Ireland manage to haul Feyi-Waboso down, we can see below that Lowe can’t roll clear and England get penalty advantage.
With England only metres out and having that advantage, Ireland are now into catastrophic territory.
England keep their cool with the game on the line. Joe Marler, Will Stuart, Earl, and Dan carry off scrum-half Care on the next four phases before Henderson denies Alex Dombrandt what briefly looks like the possible winning try.
England recycle and Furbank is next to carry.
Henshaw tackles Furbank and then Beirne jackals over the ball.
A crucial clearout from Itoje denies Beirne the turnover – which would have meant going back to England’s penalty advantage anyway.
But Beirne can’t resist going back onto the ball. Amashukeli shouts, “No hands, you’ve lost”.
He pauses, then shouts, “Lost.”
Another pause and, “No, lost it, lost it,” but Beirne continues to cling on.
Having warned Beirne three times, Amashukeli signals a new penalty advantage and this time it’s in a much more kickable position for England, especially for a right-footer like Smith.
Knowing he now has a kickable penalty waiting with the advantage, Smith calls for the drop goal and Care digs the ball out and hits Smith out the back.
From straight in front and with the clock in the red, Smith keeps his cool to get his drop kick away before Doris, Finlay Bealham, and Aki can close him down.
It’s agony for Ireland and ecstasy for England.
