JAMES LOWE, MACK Hansen, and Hugo Keenan are nailed on for Ireland’s 33-man World Cup squad, while Jimmy O’Brien looks set to travel given how comfortably he has taken to Test rugby, how suited he is to Ireland’s style of play, and how versatile he is. 

It’s less clear who else will travel as part of Ireland’s back three contingent, meaning there was lots of scrutiny on starting wings Keith Earls and Jacob Stockdale during Ireland’s warm-up win over Italy last weekend.

One warm-up game is not the sole basis on which a player’s World Cup inclusion or exclusion is decided. That applies to good performances and disappointing ones. Still, when selection calls come down to the wire, a positive impression might prove to be important. Many of us are prone to recency bias, albeit Test rugby coaches can be immune from it.

Stockdale is best known as a left wing but he has also has Test rugby experience at fullback from 2020 when he started four games at number 15 at the start of the Farrell era. 

Earls is predominantly a right wing but has experience on the left side, including under Farrell, and is also seen as cover at outside centre. The Munster man played the closing 20 minutes of last weekend’s game at outside centre after starting on the right wing. 

35-year-old Earls has been quite a central figure in the Farrell reign, even if he hasn’t always been a first-choice player or even available due to injury. He captained a midweek Ireland team in New Zealand last summer and is now just one cap away from being a centurion.

But let’s dive into the Italy game to see what the Irish wings offered.

Stockdale was Ireland’s top ball-carrier in this game with 16 and there were glimpses of his strength as he got seven touches of the ball inside the opening 12 minutes, an ideal scenario for a player out to impress.

There were early signs of rust on his return to Test rugby, though, and he’d have been frustrated to get tackled into touch as he countered back from an Italian kick.

Stockdale might reflect that he could have dropped a switch pass off to fullback Jimmy O’Brien as the touchline grew nearer or that he could have simply squared up and carried aggressively upfield a little earlier.

Getting tackled into touch is a big one for wings to avoid but it happened to Stockdale a second time close to the left corner when Ireland were playing a penalty advantage.

It was clear how intent Ireland were on getting Stockdale involved and in the case below, he starts tucked in behind the Irish maul before popping out to the right of scrum-half Craig Casey.

It makes sense to use Stockdale in these positions given his size and power. Although he ends up a little isolated here, his placement of the ball buys Stuart McCloskey enough time to form a ruck before Italy number eight Lorenzo Cannone gets his hands on for a jackal. Ireland win the penalty for hands in the ruck.

Stockdale was nearly choke-tackled after receiving an Italian drop-out at one stage in the first half but he showed good fight and strength to ensure the ball wasn’t swallowed up.

It looks like a lost situation but you can see how hard Stockdale is wriggling to get himself towards the ground in order to release the ball.

The Ulster man’s most memorable moment of the day came underneath a hanging Casey box kick.

Stockdale’s aerial win was a brilliant bit of skill.

As highlighted below, Stockdale has to work infield initially to get himself towards the landing point of Casey’s kick.

The retreating Italian players are doing their best to ‘escort’ Stockdale – subtly impeding him from a direct chase – in order to give their fullback, Tommaso Allan, time to get up and win the ball.

But Stockdale cleverly weaves his way in between two of them, all while keeping his eyes on the ball in the air.

As we can see below, Stockdale straightens back up between two Italians and has already leapt before Allan has taken off.

The timing and trajectory of Stockdale’s jump is key. He gets up ahead of Allan but also on a better angle to attack the ball, naturally helped by running onto it. 

Allan is further underneath the landing spot of the ball, whereas Stockdale is jumping up and through it.

With his explosive leap and his height, he gets over Allan and comes down with a brilliant take.

Having straightened into his jump, Stockdale also stays upfield while he’s in the air, which is important because he’s pointing towards the tryline as he lands. Oftentimes, players turn their bodies when leaping to catch the ball, but Stockdale’s technique is excellent here

He’s able to accelerate immediately upon landing, taking him through Stephen Varney’s tackle attempt as he tucks the ball into his left arm before Paolo Odogwu hauls him down.

Ireland are firmly on the front foot thanks to Stockdale’s big aerial win and when they swing the ball wide to the right on the next phase, Earls puts a clever grubber kick through.

It almost yields a try for O’Brien.

Earls wasn’t as prominent in the ball-carrying stakes as Stockdale in the game against Italy.

He took the ball into contact on seven occasions, but would have been frustrated with a couple of handling errors early in the game.

As we have seen in the recent past, Earls is a fan of stepping back inside off the right wing and making slaloming runs, such as the one below.

At first it appeared that Earls had offloaded the ball to Tom O’Toole but a closer look shows the Italian tackler actually dislodging it from Earls’ grasp.

That one worked out for Earls but he had a knock-on shortly after as Ireland pushed on the door of the Italian 22.

As we can see above, Earls is off his right wing here, which is something the Irish coaches encourage from their numbers 11 and 14.

The Munster man [blue below] has set up behind a pod of two forwards [yellow] in this instance, with O’Brien [red] at first receiver.

O’Brien passes to Caelan Doris and while his offload is perhaps a little forced, putting Earls under pressure, it’s still a ball Earls would have been frustrated not to take. 

Just before that knock-on, Earls had a positive involvement as he went on one of those slaloming runs back inside before offloading to Casey.

Earls cut a similar line in the second half as Stockdale ran back an Italian kick.

As we see below, the pass from Stockdale is worrying at first as it goes right out in front of the retreating Robbie Henshaw, with a brief intercept scare, but it bounces up to Earls.

Some wings might have gone for the outside here but Earls opts to cut infield again.

To be fair, there are plenty of Italian defenders tracking across by the time the ball bounces up to Earls and he’s never been the kind of player who likes to risk turnovers just for the sake of trying to beat his man.

There’s no obvious linebreak on offer for him here and Ireland retain possession, but it would have been encouraging for Farrell and co. to see him using his footwork and stretching his legs at some stage of this game. 

One aspect of Earls’ performance that certainly would have pleased the Irish coaches was how he roamed off his wing, as alluded to above. 

Lowe and Hansen are outstanding in this regard, getting lots of touches in all areas, as well as being distributors. This duty is something that Earls seems comfortable with.

Below, we see Earls popping up over on the left to take a pass from Jack Crowley, dummy to Stockdale, and carry.

Earls rolls out of the initial tackle from Cannone and the match officials are happy for him to fight back up to his feet before he’s fully stopped by Manuel Zuilani.

In the shot below, we can see that Stockdale has done similar, swinging all the way out to the right, although he doesn’t get the ball on this occasion.

While it’s obviously still important for wings to hold width on their left or right side at times, Ireland place a premium on working off the ball to create overloads of attackers against defenders, with their clever short passing often picking the locks of the defence.

The 1-3-2-2 attack shape in which they often set up in phase play means that forwards can end up holding width while the wings go roaming.

Earls’ move to outside centre for the final quarter of the game gave him even more license to be involved in Ireland’s phase-play attack.

Below, he’s set up as first receiver on second phase of a planned lineout attack but gets a pass up over his head from Caolin Blade and has to carry himself.

However, Earls is involved in a string of passes a few phases later.

Here, he sets up behind a pod of three forwards [yellow below] to the right of the ruck.

At the heart of the 3-pod, Tadhg Furlong sweeps a pass out the back to Earls, who now has a pod of two forwards outside him [yellow below].

Crowley [red above] and Stuart McCloskey [blue] are swinging in behind that 2-pod and Earls decides to screen his pass to Crowley, as we see below.

It’s a nice involvement for Earls as a distributor and opportunity beckons out wide, only for Crowley to throw a poor pass to Stockdale, who takes a hefty blow as he tries to reel the ball in.

Perhaps Earls’ best involvement of the game was his contribution in the build-up to Doris’ second-half try.

The entire passage, which stemmed from a Joe McCarthy turnover, was Ireland’s most fluid of the game and Earls showed his smarts to be involved.

As we join the action, Earls has attended a breakdown to the right of the posts.

Blade moves the ball left and Earls is quickly on his bike working to that side of the pitch.

It’s worth noting that Earls scans to the right even as he’s moving left, making sure he’s not running away from the real opportunity.

With Earls on the move, Doris tips on a pass to Cian Prendergast, who carries in midfield.

As the next phase is launched by Blade’s pass to out-half Ciarán Frawley [blue below], Earls [red] really recognises the chance of an overload and begins to accelerate wider to the left…

… swinging behind and beyond Crowley [black below], who is on the receiving end of Frawley’s pass in between a pod of two Irish forwards.

Watch the play unfold below as Earls works intelligently out to the left, receives a pass from Crowley, draws Lorenzo Pani, and sends Stockdale into space.

As we see below, Stockdale surges up into the Italian 22.

Stockdale has Tom Stewart outside him and the Ireland hooker would probably fancy a rumble one-on-one against Italian scrum-half Allesandro Fusco but Stockdale decides to carry the ball himself. 

Prendergast bursts through in midfield after more slick passing on the next phase and Doris caps the brilliant passage off with a score another four phases later.

Earls’ contribution won’t have gone unnoticed and though his repositioning into midfield certainly gave him greater scope to have an involvement like this, this kind of play does seem to be more intuitive for him than it is for Stockdale. Earls had made eight passes in this game, while Stockdale had two.

But it’s important to acknowledge that Stockdale did go looking for work, particularly close to the ruck. In the instance below, he picks and carries on fourth phase of an Irish attack.

Ireland’s coaches have high expectations of their wings’ work-rate off the ball, both in terms of getting into position to offer an extra set of hands but also in providing support for linebreaks.

Oftentimes, this hard work goes unrewarded but it’s rarely unnoticed.

For example, track Earls in the instance below. He starts on the right-hand side of the ruck as Ireland pass to their left.

As the ball is moved into midfield, Earls senses an opportunity and he takes off upfield.

Doris tips on a pass to Jack Conan, who then tries to free his hands to offload to O’Brien, who swings up from his starting position behind the pod.

The opportunity is clear. If Conan can offload to O’Brien, he will almost certainly break through and Earls’ smart line means the Irish fullback will have excellent support. It could even be an Irish try if they’re clinical in behind.

Unfortunately for them, Italy centre Tommaso Menoncello does just enough to prevent Conan from successfully offloading.

Still, Ireland retain possession and move the ball wide to the left for Stockdale to have a run up into the Italian 22.

Note the subtle bit of work on the ground from Stockdale, turning his body over the ball to shield it from Odogwu’s jackal effort, buying Henshaw time to clear him away.

Earls has a good habit of running these proactive support lines and we saw another example as late as the 79th minute against Italy.

Ireland are moving the ball to their right and Earls works upfield all the way over on the far side of the ruck.

It might not even be noticed if Earls doesn’t run this line but he recognises the potential for a linebreak and wants to offer support. If Ireland do break up the right, Earls is on the inside to provide a passing option.

As it is, Ireland make it up to the Italian 10-metre line, where scrum-half Blade carries. Having worked all the way across, Earls now steps in at scrum-half.

The ball goes loose as Stewart’s sweep pass goes behind Frawley, but Earls reacts well to scoop it up.

As we see below, he’s under pressure but he cleverly buys time by releasing the ball on the ground and picking it back up for a ‘double carry.’

While there were lots of good moments for both Ireland wings last weekend, they each had a missed tackle for an Italian try.

Earls and Stockdale are experienced enough to know that missed tackles are part and parcel of the game. They happen to everyone. And yet, it’s one of the most miserable feelings in the sport to be left clutching at air as an opponent blasts past to score.

It’s worth noting that Stockdale had completed a good tackle earlier in the game with this effort on Monty Ioane.

Stockdale looks composed on the left edge, backing off to give Henshaw time to catch up on his inside, then ducking in low to bring Ioane down as the Italian wing tries to get outside Stockdale. Henshaw and O’Brien attack the breakdown and the Italians are penalised for sealing off.

The Ireland left wing’s missed tackle came for Pani’s try in the second half and while a brief lack of connection between McCloskey and Henshaw in midfield appears to be the chief reason Italy got so much space on the edge, Stockdale has a chance to rescue the situation as he chases across.

Stockdale is upright into the contest and might feel he could have dipped a little more before contact, but the main reason he misses Pani is the Italian wing’s excellent fend.

Watch below how Stockdale attempts to swat or chop Pani’s fend down.

Stockdale leads with his left arm, attempting to swat Pani’s left arm down. Stockdale’s right-arm attempt is secondary.

In circumstances like this, you’ll often see the defender swatting aggressively with their right arm, which might seem a little counterintuitive. However, swatting with the right means that the defender can then almost swing into the tackle with their left side leading – meaning more chance of connecting firmly.

Stockdale doesn’t succeed in disrupting Pani’s fend, which lands into his exposed chest and leaves Stockdale grabbing with his hands – not a strong position.

Stockdale might also feel he would have been better served by accelerating more furiously into Pani in his last three steps. He has a weight advantage of at least 5kg over the Italian and possibly could have made more of an impact if he thundered into him in the last metre. Even if he doesn’t completely stop Pani in that case, McCloskey might be able to tie up the ball coming from the inside.

Earls made three tackles in this game and we know he can be impactful in contact, as below.

But he will regret his missed tackle for Menoncello’s second-half try, which came far too easily.

Earls is an excellent defender and the error will have frustrated him hugely.

Although Earls is in a good spot to stop Menoncello, Juan Ignacio Brex’s late pass short to his centre partner means Earls doesn’t have a huge amount of time to react – not that that’s the mindset he wants to bring to defence. He wants to be proactive.

Earls might feel he could have been more in the role of the aggressor here, bringing more power into the collision even with the lateness of the pass and an option out the back of Menoncello for Brex to possibly hit.

There’s little time for Earls to dip lower and Menoncello dominates the initial collision. Earls decides to go to ground himself, attempting to drag Menoncello down with him, but the Italian is too powerful and pirouettes out of Earls’ grasp to finish. 

While missed tackles are part of every game, it is relatively rare seeing Irish players miss tackles like this one and though Earls has lots of defensive credit in the bank, it will likely have rankled with him. 

The Irish wings only kicked twice each against Italy, with Stockdale’s powerful left boot not a big factor in the contest. He had a poor connection with this first-half effort.

It’s down the throat of Varney, who happily returns fire into an unguarded Irish backfield, meaning Stockdale and Crowley have to work hard to get back downfield.

We can see Crowley on Stockdale’s inside below.

Stockdale ends up having a fair bit of time as he gathers the ball and turns but then he gets caught in two minds.

He neither kicks early nor passes inside to Crowley as Varney closes in.

Varney seems as surprised as anyone and Stockdale’s strength gets him out of trouble as he fends the Italian scrum-half into the ground and belatedly blasts the ball away into touch.

Earls didn’t connect with an exiting kick as well as he would have liked in the second half.

It comes from one of Doris’ turnovers and Earls appears to be looking for touch.

The ball stays infield and Earls leads the chase to help take down Ioane along with Baird.

But on the very next phase, Earls concedes a penalty for a high tackle as the Italians attack into the shortside.

Chasing from inside and intent on making an impact, Earls’ arm makes contact with Danilo Fischetti’s head and it’s an Italian penalty. They kick into the left corner and score Pani’s try from the ensuing lineout.

Earls uncharacteristically gave up a second penalty late in the game as he and McCloskey attempted to choke tackle Allan.

As we see above, the Italian fullback gets a knee to ground and referee Mathieu Raynal clearly shouts, “Tackle now, tackle” but the Irish pair don’t release Allan. Earls strips the ball away from the Italian and it’s another penalty concession. 

So there are plenty of moments that Earls and Stockdale will reflect on as needing to improve if they get another chance to play against England in two weekends’ time.

Both of them would dearly love another opportunity to show more of the good stuff.