PETER O’MAHONY KNEW that taking on the Ireland captaincy would bring with it heightened scrutiny of his performances.
The 34-year-old has overcome many difficult moments during his long career and this week he’ll be out to prove the doubters wrong again on the back of one of his least impactful outing in a green jersey for some time.
As England stormed to a brilliant win against Andy Farrell’s men in Twickenham on Saturday, O’Mahony struggled to make an impact on the game before a costly yellow card ended his involvement.
It was a difficult evening for the Munster player and comes as Ryan Baird is pushing hard for a place in the starting team.
The Leinster player has provided an energetic impact off the bench across the championship on the back of a strong run of post-World Cup form.
The gap between the two appears to be closing but with a Six Nations title on the line when Scotland come to Dublin this weekend, it would be a massive call for Farrell to drop his captain.
The Ireland head coach will likely give O’Mahony the opportunity to respond with a statement performance in Ireland’s tournament closer and defence coach Simon Easterby has backed ‘the big game player’ to put Twickenham behind him as Ireland look to seal back-to-back Six Nations titles.
“He’s good. He’ll be disappointed, like a lot of players, with how it went on the weekend against England,” Easterby said.
“He’s a big game player and I don’t think there’s anyone in any sport who has a bad game and doesn’t feel like they haven’t played to the expectations of themselves and their teammates. So, he’s been great. He always is.
“He’s always solid around his emotion and the way he deals with the players and how he tries to pitch the week as a captain. He’s been excellent so far, I don’t see any issue to be honest.”
O’Mahony was binned against England in the 57th minute for going off his feet at the breakdown, having initially done well to make a brilliant recovery tackle as Ben Earl stormed away from a lost Ireland lineout.
“The penalty, the yellow card, it’s him trying to do something for the team,” Easterby said.
We know it’s a bad decision, but it could be anyone in that situation trying to make up for a linebreak.
“So, [he's] disappointed like everyone is. But, he’s proved time and again that he’s a big game player and that it’s not always what you do in the game, but what you do before that we’ll see the true Peter this week.”
O’Mahony was far from the only player guilty of an off-colour performance as Ireland’s Grand Slam dream died in London, and Easterby admitted that improving their discipline will be a big focus for the squad this week.
Ireland gave away eight penalties against Steve Borthwick’s side as they struggled to live with England’s aggression on the day.
“We would review those both sides of the ball; set-piece, phase attack, phase defence – we would review those regularly around what we could do better and how we could avoid certain things.
“Certainly, we dipped into it a bit too much at the weekend, we conceded a few too many penalties without the ball and part of that is momentum.
“They had momentum and sometimes that creates the illusion that you’re illegal and sometimes you are. It’s the nature of the game.
“We keep going hard at good decision-making, what’s a bad decision and try and get players to understand how that affects the team.”
Easterby was quick to hand England credit for the quality of their performance but also admitted Ireland “didn’t play anywhere near our best” as they suffered their first Six Nations loss since a 2022 trip to France.
“I think you have to credit England a bit as well, the way they played. We certainly didn’t get a lot of things right but I think also they had a big part to play in that.
“We haven’t had too many reviews when we’ve lost the game, recently, but a lot of our reviews – win or lose – are similar anyway, so I don’t think it changes a huge amount.
“The disappointment is there when you lose and you’ve got to get over that emotion; but the players have been brilliant these last few days, reflecting on their own performances and ultimately we know that it wasn’t quite good enough.
“We didn’t play anywhere near our best, certainly without the ball.
“We were off it and it came down to the last minute, we can pick holes in lots of things and we do that when we’ve won as well. So it’s important that we stay true to what we believe and focus on Scotland.”
