OF THE MANY aspects of Ireland’s performance in Marseille last Friday, perhaps the most pleasing was the smooth-running lineout which proved central to a record 38-17 win in France.
Having struggled at the setpiece during last year’s World Cup there were big questions around Ireland’s lineout heading into this Six Nations campaign, but things could hardly have gone better for Andy Farrell’s side at the Stade Vélodrome.
Ireland recorded a 100% success rate from their 13 throws and managed to disrupt the French lineout throughout.
This has clearly been a big focus for forwards coach Paul O’Connell over the winter months but Rónan Kelleher insists there has been no major reconstruction of their lineout systems.
“We didn’t change much. We’re constantly trying to tweak and fine-tune our individual drills,” Kelleher says.
There was no revamp or anything, it was just keep doing what we’re doing.
“In the World Cup, it didn’t go… it wasn’t all bad like… it went alright, it was just little, tiny bits and pieces here and there which obviously didn’t click on the day but it’s nothing major, no revamp or anything, very much just tweaks.”
Still, Ireland’s stats at the World Cup made for uncomfortable reading.
Ireland’s lineout ran at 67% and 91% respectively in the pool stage defeats of Romania and Scotland, but dipped to 67% on their own throw on a bad night for the set-piece against South Africa, before a 100% return against Scotland. In the quarter-final loss to New Zealand, Ireland lost three of their 14 throws.
By the tournament’s end, Ireland’s lineout was ranked 14th in the competition.
Those numbers naturally provided cause for concern, with IRFU high performance director David Nucifora admitting Ireland’s lineout work needed improvement during his end of year briefing.
“I think it wasn’t a failure, as such, but I think the consistency of the lineout at times proved to be a bit of a challenge for us and we weren’t as consistent as we’d have liked to be,” Nucifora said.
“I certainly think that, from having this discussion with Paul [O’Connell], the quality of lineout defence in the game is improving and that’s something he’s looking at really closely at the moment.”
It’s early days yet, but Friday’s return in Marseille suggests Ireland are tracking in the right direction again.
“It was difficult [during the World Cup] but, also, I suppose teams were looking at our game and trying to figure out where they could get a bit of access,” Kelleher says.
We came up against some good lineout D as well, in terms of South Africa. They have a brilliant lineout defence, Scotland have a good lineout defence as well.
“So I suppose there wasn’t any major revamp or anything like that, there wasn’t any real scare for us, we were still very confident in our lineout, our drill, in what we were doing, it wasn’t anything major.”
In Marseille Ireland turned that apparent Achilles Heel into a point of difference, with the lineout proving the launchpad for all five of their tries on the night.
Andy Farrell’s side scored second-half maul tries through Kelleher and Dan Sheehan while the first three tries – which came from Jamison Gibson-Park, Tadhg Beirne and Calvin Nash – all started with Ireland securing their own throw before moving into their attacking shape.
Ireland will have taken huge satisfaction in their set-piece execution but will now hope to add more variety when Italy visit Dublin this Sunday [KO 3pm].
“I think our game is pretty well-rounded. If you look back at the last Six Nations, I don’t know the exact stats, but I can definitely picture one or two tries that came from goal-line dropouts and stuff like that so I don’t think we’re over-reliant on the lineout.”
