ON THE ONE hand, Saturday’s quarter-final defeat to New Zealand marked the end of an era for Ireland as they bid farewell to a couple of legends in Johnny Sexton and Keith Earls, while the international futures of a couple more senior players remain uncertain.
On the other hand, the next four years will call for evolution and not revolution, as outlined by former Ireland and Melbourne Rebels performance coach Eoin Toolan and The 42′s own Murray Kinsella on today’s Rugby Weekly Extra podcast.
Exclusively for The 42 subscribers, Toolan and Kinsella joined Gavan Casey on Wednesday’s pod to delve further into all four quarter-finals, including a forensic assessment of South Africa’s stunning win over France, and look ahead to this week’s semis.
The also cast an eye towards the future and, specifically, the areas in which a still-strong side will look to improve under Andy Farrell and his coaching staff for next year’s Six Nations campaign and beyond.
“I think you’ll see a lot of nations looking at New Zealand and what they did to deny Ireland’s attacking framework, to deny them the ability to score tries which they had done at such a facile rate throughout their 17-game run,” Toolan began.
“So, I think Ireland will look to find a bit more balance in their attack.
“I think they’ll look to use a genuine running threat at 10 — and we will see this with Jack Crowley — particularly to deal with passive defensive systems. We’ll look to play a little bit later at the line.
Like, Johnny did look fatigued towards the end of the game. I thought it was absolutely right for him to stay on the field because he was moving Ireland around the pitch excellently, but having the ability to go at the line as a 10, and with real pace, could be a change in dynamic for Ireland.
“But it’s hard to pick too many holes in what has been a brilliant, brilliant Ireland team over the last 18 months,” added Toolan, who went on to explain why he believes a World Cup quarter-final now presents an even bigger psychological barrier for Ireland’s players, irrespective of what they say publicly.
“We are nitpicking here,” said Kinsella.
“Ireland have been absolutely brilliant. But they want to be better.
“One of the things that maybe could be improved is tailoring things slightly more for opposition.
Of course they analyse and go into detail and try to pick out flaws in the opposition — but they’ve been very… almost boastful in saying, ‘This is what we do.’ And I think that is a strength, that they’re more focused on themselves. I think it’s great that Irish sides aren’t over-obsessed with the opposition. But you saw how tailored the All Blacks’ plan was for Ireland and how it worked.
“I’m not saying Ireland should go to that degree every game, but just that they might add a few more ploys around weaknesses that they’ve seen in opposition. And that means taking time away from the things that you want to do on the training pitch, and you’ve got to get that balance right.
You don’t want to become obsessed, again, with opposition and going through every single thing they do in minor detail, but just to have those little weapons up your sleeve — as New Zealand did with that lineout move (for Will Jordan’s try), for example: a really specific plan based on a really, really specific part of Ireland’s game which put the players in a position in which they were deeply uncomfortable.
“They weren’t familiar with it in any way.
“I thought that was really smart coaching and maybe Ireland can have a small bit more of that without returning to being robotic.”
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