WHEN IT COMES to previewing Pool B of the World Cup, everyone has been talking about the South African forwards.
There are so many big, powerful units in their squad that the Springboks were able to go with an impressive 7/1 bench split in their final warm-up game against the All Blacks. The South Africans could even go 8/0 such are their options up front.
But there’s another top-class pack to contend with in Pool B. Ireland’s forwards edged the Springboks last November when they visited Dublin. The Irish pack has been essential to their run of 13 consecutive wins and their status as the number-one-ranked team in the world. Forwards coach Paul O’Connell has done excellent work with some powerful, talented players.
Andy Farrell and the Irish coaches are happy with their own depth, too. There is a belief in the Irish set-up that they’ll be able to call on an impactful bench when their clash with the Springboks rolls around on 23 September.
“From the second Faz came in, he wanted to develop a group of players that were turning up to training incredibly competitive and that there was honest feedback from coaches to players where they knew exactly where they stood,” said Ireland scrum coach John Fogarty.
“I think players are really clear in their minds that they’re here to compete for their position and when they get to represent their country they’re really clear on what it is they need to deliver on. Training sessions need to be very physical.
“We have two packs now that, the Wednesday session, Paulie said to me, ‘It’s box office’.
“When we get out of a scrum or a maul, it’s incredibly competitive so we’re sharpening massively during the week because we’ve got that type of a group.
“And there’s huge belief. It doesn’t matter what pack you’re in at the weekend, there’s huge belief throughout the squad in being able to deliver. That’s a real strength of ours.”
While everyone else is talking about the Springboks’ so-called ‘Bomb Squad,’ Ireland are confident that they have versatile forwards who give them lots of options.
Fogarty cited Ryan Baird and Tadhg Beirne as two examples, with both players capable of featuring in the second row or back row.
There was one big loss just before the World Cup, though, with 125-times capped loosehead prop Cian Healy ruled out due to the calf injury he suffered in Ireland’s last warm-up game against Samoa.
Dave Kilcoyne moves a rung up the depth chart behind first-choice loosehead Andrew Porter as a result, while Munster’s Jeremy Loughman was the one to be included in the World Cup squad in Healy’s absence.
Loughman only joined Ireland’s pre-season programme a few weeks ago, but Fogarty feels he’s capable of stepping up.
“Everyone we have here is ready to go,” said Fogarty.
“I know Jeremy came in a fraction late and it was gut-wrenching to see Cian leave. He’s an incredibly experienced player who adds so much in small conversations to a Jeremy or even myself.
“We relied on Cian for those things and we’d still be in contact with him, but the guys here are ready and looking forward to whatever’s coming.”
Ireland’s most recent scrum outing was concerning, with Samoa generating some major momentum in that area. Indeed, Healy was injured when the Samoans turned on their scrum power.
The Irish scrum did improve in the second half of that clash but Fogarty knows it needs to be better in the World Cup.
“Samoa put us under real pressure and it was an issue for us,” said Fogarty.
“It was disappointing that we didn’t react in the moment to change the picture in the moment, in the game. That’s been addressed, we spoke at half time and changed some pieces and things got better for the group as a whole.
“We need to make sure that we’re learning from the whole experience, we can’t afford for us to have to figure things out at half time or post-game.
“It’s a blessing for us to have something like that happen so we can focus fully on how we can change things in the moment, how we can make sure we can react and how clear we are in our heads.”
Fogarty said Romania’s big pack will be a good test for Ireland this weekend in their Pool B opener.
He believes that referees have done a good job around the scrum recently, being decisive with their decisions.
As we saw in the last World Cup final when the Springboks scrum took England apart, the old French trope of ‘no scrum, no win’ still rings true at the highest level.
“The momentum and territory you get from penalties is big, so we’re aware,” said Fogarty.
“We’ve sat down, we’re trying to deliver to the whole team all the time as a pack, so we want to make sure we’re delivering nice accuracy, we’re disciplined in what we’re doing but when we get the opportunity, we want to deliver penalties for us.
“We want to be aggressive in our set-piece but we’ve got to be nice and disciplined and we can’t be on the receiving end of things.”
