HOW DIFFICULT AN experience it must have been for Peter O’Mahony watching those last 22 minutes at Twickenham.
Leaving your team with only 14 players is a nightmare for any captain but O’Mahony didn’t complain about his yellow card.
As soon as referee Nika Amashukeli blew his whistle for that 58th-minute penalty, O’Mahony was apologising.
“Sorry, sir. Was I off my feet?” said O’Mahony.
“Sorry, sir. Apologies, sir.”
Amashukeli had already made his decision after watching Ben Earl make a big linebreak for England before O’Mahony’s intervention to prevent the ball from being recycled quickly.
“It’s a linebreak,” said Amashukeli. “You dived over the ruck and got the ball. That’s cynical after the linebreak.”
Up flashed the yellow card and off trudged O’Mahony.
England kicked their penalty into the right corner and scored on the next attack against Ireland’s 14 men.
It was the brilliant Earl who barrelled over at the end of a confrontational passage of English carrying.
O’Mahony must have felt utterly helpless watching on from the touchline. When his 10-minute sin-bin period ended, he was replaced by Ryan Baird.
It seems highly likely that this substitution would have happened earlier than the 69th minute but for O’Mahony’s yellow card. Baird’s form demanded an early introduction but that wasn’t the case on an evening when Ireland seemed a hint slow to use their six forwards off the bench.
Naturally, O’Mahony’s hopes would have risen once again as James Lowe scored his second try in the 73rd minute but it wasn’t to be as Ireland failed to hold out in the endgame. It was surely more excruciating for O’Mahony to watch than most people in Twickenham.
Ultimately, it was a bad day for the Ireland skipper as he struggled to make an impact on the game and then left his side in a tough spot with that yellow card.
O’Mahony made one ball carry for Ireland in his 58 minutes on the pitch, as well as two passes. None of the Irish forwards made more than 10 carries in a game that had a low ball-in-play time of 34 minutes and three seconds.
O’Mahony made eight tackles in defence and was involved in a total of 16 rucks on both sides of the ball, with only Dan Sheehan in the starting Irish pack having fewer ruck involvements.
The Ireland captain claimed two of Sheehan’s lineout throws but another slipped from his grasp for a turnover to England.
As we can see above, O’Mahony is at full stretch as he tries to reel in Sheehan’s throw but the ball slips through his fingertips.
That was the story of the day for Ireland. They were second best but could have pinched a win. It slipped through their grasp right at the death.
O’Mahony will naturally be central to the bid to bounce back and claim the Six Nations title next weekend against Scotland.
Winning the championship would be a hugely pleasing result for O’Mahony in his first campaign as Ireland captain. While the form of Baird means there is strong competition for the number six shirt, it would be a massive call for Ireland boss Andy Farrell to drop his captain now when the Six Nations title is up for grabs.
Farrell obviously has major faith in O’Mahony and has praised his leadership behind the scenes during this campaign.
O’Mahony was not the only Irish player to underperform in Twickenham but he knows better than anyone that there will be a disproportionate number of calls for his head in the coming days. He will back himself to be lifting the Six Nations trophy next weekend.
Farrell hasn’t committed to O’Mahony continuing as captain beyond this Six Nations, saying that it would be down to form, and that will be a question for the Ireland head coach further down the line.
If Baird continues on his current trajectory, he will be harder and harder to leave out of the starting XV and perhaps Farrell was always intending to consider the captaincy for the tour of South Africa this summer or ahead of next season. That long-term plan remains unclear.
For now, O’Mahony is the captain of an Ireland team who can clinch their nation’s sixth championship crown of the Six Nations era.
“We spoke about our discipline, obviously it was a big ‘in’ for them,” said O’Mahony when asked for his assessment of Ireland’s defeat in Twickenham.
“I thought they were good and clinical at messing up our breakdown. We found it hard to get consistency in our phase play. I thought we striked quite well off set-piece but we didn’t seem to get into our a lot of phase [play attack].
“As we said beforehand, it was a massive pressure match, pressure environment. They’re a quality side and I thought they showed that in spades tonight with the way they defended, clinical in their attack, and disrupted a lot of our stuff that we wanted to do.”
This morning, O’Mahony and Ireland will be feeling the pain of losing to England but they will soon be back to business as they look to clinch the Six Nations. That prospect is certainly not something to be sniffed at.
