THE LIST WENT right across the world. Pole to pole, November to November, 2017 until 2018. Argentina, Fiji, South Africa, France, Wales, England, Scotland, Australia and the All Blacks.
No matter what their opponents tried; Joe Schmidt’s side had the answers. They could run over teams from the start – Twickenham 2018, South Africa 2017, or they could leave it late, Paris 2018.
They could come from behind or close the deal. By the time the world was waking up on New Year’s Day, 2019, Ireland were the best side in the world, even if the World Rugby rankings didn’t authorise that wildly-held opinion.
And then it stopped. In the two years since, Ireland have played 15 competitive games in the Six Nations and the World Cup and lost six – the ones that mattered most.
With the championship title on the line in Paris last Saturday and in Cardiff 18 months earlier, they choked. At the World Cup in Japan, they couldn’t cope with the energy of the hosts or the sheer brilliance of the All Blacks. It’s as if 2018 belonged to ancient history rather than the recent past.
“We cannot keep talking about (2018) …….” Johnny Sexton said earlier today, slightly irked by the reminder that not so long ago, people talked to him in these weeks about a glorious Irish victory rather than another frustrating defeat.
“Like, this is a very different team with different coaches and different personnel so ….. for us this is a new team, this is 2020. Everything is about moving forward.”
Except the side has gone backwards. In the last two Six Nations championships, Ireland’s six victories have come against sides positioned in the bottom half of the table. Their record against top-half teams, Wales and England in 2019, France and England in 2020, reads as follows: played four, lost four.
“Yes, we have not found the consistency that the previous team had,” said Sexton.
“Are we where we want to be? No, but we are confident we can improve and move forward, hopefully in the next few games and then into next year’s Six Nations.”
To get there, ‘we need to be a bit more ruthless’, reckoned Sexton, as he pointed to last Saturday’s Jekyll and Hyde performance in Paris, how Ireland continued to cough up opportunities in the red zone, whereas the French collected cheap points every time they sniffed a chance.
“We spent close to five minutes of the game in their 22 and to come away with not a lot is very disappointing compared to what they delivered,” Ireland captain, Sexton, said. “I mean they scored tries from nothing really, from some brilliant pieces of play by them; and some poor bits by us.
“The chances are there; we just need to be a ruthless team and go for them. Even before half-time (when Ireland were camped in the French 22), a ruthless team scores there and the game can totally change; they are the small things that make champion sides and we are not there at the moment.”
If they are to get there, then they need to revisit 2018 again when Ireland’s supposedly predictable game-plan was supplemented by training-ground plays that continued to work – such as CJ Stander’s try at Twickenham or Jacob Stockdale’s score against the All Blacks.
Since then Stockdale’s confidence has been shattered and while Farrell spoke kindly about him today, he must recognise that for the sake of the team, a change is needed, especially as James Lowe is now eligible. A call to Simon Zebo – while unlikely to ever happen while he remains in Paris – would also solve a lot of troubling issues very quickly.
Otherwise, there is a need for patience, to trust in the fact the new coach is still only five games into his tenure and that he deserves time to deliver even if your suspicion at this stage is that Joe Schmidt was a superior coach who consistently managed to get the team to out-perform.
In terms of delivering a message, though, Farrell is at least making the right noises. “There is always a plan and a feel for what is a best fit for the group; we don’t want to overload the players with too much information,” Farrell said earlier today.
“To be the side that we can potentially become we have got to have a shift in mindset. Going to Paris, everyone said it was going to be tough. Nobody really gave us a hope in the first place but we had enough opportunity in that first half to have been 10 points up at half-time if we had the mindset to take those opportunities.
“And that is where I want us to be. I don’t want us to shy away from that. I want us to be that team that goes for games and says, ‘you have to live with us’. I don’t want us to tip our toe in the water, come in at half-time and think ‘we’re in this game’. We need more than that.”
His job is to deliver on that promise.
