PAUL O’CONNELL HAS plenty to keep himself busy with over the next couple of weeks following another frustrating day for Ireland at the lineout.
Andy Farrell’s side eased to a 29-10 win against England at Aviva Stadium and while there was much to like about the performance, the lineout was once again an area of concern as the home side conceded a number of penalties and struggled to get their timing right.
Speaking after the game, Ireland captain James Ryan described those lineout troubles as ‘small fixes’, before explaining how he felt England had managed to successfully disrupt Ireland’s set-piece work.
“I think they are small fixes. We just didn’t get it quite right today,” Ryan said.
“I don’t know if it was a focus or a concentration thing or what it was. They are little things but they are important things, so we will have to fix up on them.
Their lineout defence was good, they got good air pressure. But the main pressure we came under was just pressure on the ground.
“They were able to get through seams very effectively. We gave them too much access there, so they were able to swim through and either cause us to knock on the ball or we weren’t able to retain possession.
“It’s just some poor drill. Generally the lineout has been a real strength of ours and it’s something we like going to, so it’s a good reminder for us that we need to be fully on it.
“We will have to take some lessons from it today going into next week and the next few weeks.”
Ryan elaborated on Ireland being penalised for the recurring issue of ‘double-banking’ – obstructing the opposition while in an offside position as the catcher comes to ground – an infringement which also crept up in the win against Italy earlier this month.
“His (referee) take on it was that our back lifter came too far around, so he blocked their access,” Ryan explained.
“My point of view was that they spun us, so they spun the back lifter.
They did it very effectively, so they presented a picture to him that we were blocking access, when actually, they just spun quite well.
“So, that was my take on it. I understand that something like that for the ref happens very quickly and they are looking at a lot of things, so I’m definitely not giving out about the decision.
“But that was certainly the way I felt at the time. We will have to have a look at it again.”
Ireland will aim to iron out those lineout issues over the next couple of weeks, with Farrell’s side set to take on Samoa in Bayonne next weekend in their third and final warm-up game.
Overall, it was a largely encouraging day for an Ireland side who displayed some real flashes of quality in attack as they scored five tries against a limited England team.
“A little bit frustrating,” Ryan added. “Obviously we are happy to get the win, but we judge ourselves pretty harshly because we just want to get better and better.
“I thought the first half was a little bit disappointing, we just didn’t really get into the flow that we wanted to for a number of reasons.
“I thought the second half was better but we are still looking for that full 80-minute performance that we want to get out of this pre-season block.
“A lot of lessons heading into Samoa next week. That will be the ambition, to put in a performance that we can be happy for the full 80 minutes.”
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