[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]I[/su_dropcap]reland are improving, yes, but not at the rate required to keep up with the teams who have aims of winning this tournament. That isn’t to say that Andy Farrell’s Ireland aren’t ambitious or that they don’t have ambitions to get back to the Grand Slam mountain of 2018, but that isn’t going to be happening this season. A lot can change in a year – and this season can undoubtedly be salvaged with three wins – but I can’t shake the feeling that Ireland, as they are currently constructed offensively, are always going to be in with a shot of falling short against top-class opposition.

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how Ireland have “no attacking shape”. That just flat out isn’t true. We do have a discernable attacking shape – a fluid 3-2-2 variant – but we’re not getting the full value from it as we’re currently constructed in an environment where we are not consistently dominating the gain line on our possessions prior to releasing the ball to our “structure”.

We will probably construct some nice looking scores against Italy – probably being the keyword here – because we are likely to have a form of consistent gainline dominance in that game which will make release options inevitable and obvious. A 3-2-2 system, however, is implemented to bypass the need for consistent forward earned gainline by giving you consistent width options as a by-product of the structure itself. That is its primary function at a basic design level. You always want consistent heavy gains off #9 to make the release to the structure easier but it shouldn’t be a prerequisite because otherwise, you won’t be able to play against teams where you have a physical disadvantage or on the occasions where you lose a few collisions in a sequence.

A 2-3-2-2 shape when properly implemented will provide width and “hinge” moments where key backs will have to make good decisions and back those decisions with excellent execution of their key skill. They are reliant on the ball they receive, however, and here’s a good example of how a bad pass and a confused forward shape can affect the phase. When you want to tighten up against big, high line speed opposition, the 2-3-2-2 allows you to pinch your lines into something that mainly looks like a 3-2-1 in practice when you’re “launching” off it.

On the first phase of structure, it’ll look like this.

You progress across the field using this to either create a linebreak or attain a wide ruck. If you get that wide ruck, the forwards will reshape to consistently offer that two pod in the middle space.

That Middle Two-Pod will consistently interest the edge of the opposition defence so your handlers can hit them or hit off them. Ireland, as I spoke about before the game, like to play through that Middle Two-Pod quite a bit.

Here’s an example of two phases where you can see a poor application of structure and what it does on the first example, coupled with a good application of the structure and what that does when the player in the moment can’t execute.

Have a watch of this two-phase montage that happens early in the first half.

PHASE 1: On the first phase, Ruddock is a little lost on the play and seems to wander off structure – almost into the passing lane – and this draws Stander out of the wider two-pod to fill the close range three-pod that Ruddock was probably meant to be in.

Ringrose slides into the first receiver slot and scans the field.

Without Stander in the middle two pod – Van Der Flier has deliberately preserved width – Ringrose only has one forward to screen off so his options have been reduced, even with Gibson-Park’s poor pass checking his motion.

You’ll see the moment clearly and it reduces our threat options on this phase. Ringrose had Henshaw, Van Der Flier and Earls on the 5m tram but without the second forward in the Middle Two spot, there’s nothing to stagger the edge of the French defence.

PHASE 2: We work the ball through a tight three pod – great collision work by Stander and Healy with Ruddock assisting – and from there Gibson-Park’s pass to Burns is spot on. Burns runs the perfect angled attack line – a slight jab step and angle to hold three defenders – to open up a “hinge” moment for Keenan. The phase will now solely rely on what Keenan does next. He’s got a flat kicking option in Lowe and two recessed runners to hit.

If Keenan gets the ball to Ringrose or Herring, Ireland will probably get a critical linebreak and score in another phase with a good recycle. If he can stab a kick accurately through for Lowe, this is a try under the posts.

Keenan seems to freeze in the moment and bricks the pass. This is a constant in Keenan’s game where he doesn’t back his pass at key moments.

Pass accuracy and line running is a constant issue for Ireland in key moments.

On the first example here it looks like Ireland are playing off an unexpected turnover ball rather than on a lineout strike they called and executed efficiently. Running lines are clanging together and passes are going to unintended carriers.

The second example shows a hinge moment being passed up as we morphed into a 3-3-1 off the wide ruck position. The first option is to always blame the forward here but look at Ringrose – there’s no call or animation for an expected pass – and even though we get a breakaway down the wing through Lowe a phase later, it feels like the real break opportunity was left on the table.

We used Lowe as an alternate first receiver on a few occasions in this game and you can see an example of it above. That allows Ireland to extend our backline to a wider starting position anchored by Lowe’s carrying and short ball threat off #9.

It produced a little moment here but it was hurt by a lost collision – Stander was stripped in possession by Fickou but Ringrose will be a little disappointed by his physicality when it came to helping his forwards win a collision point.

You can see Lowe showing up as first receiver here again in the second half but his passing left him down in this instance as he bricks a poor pass to Ed Byrne, who has to drastically reshape his body to the point that he loses a collision with Antoine Dupont that is only remedied by two Irish forwards and James Lowe. When we release from there, there’s still a huge opportunity if Ross Byrne’s pass can run Ringrose into space.

I spoke before the game about how France will shoot in from the edge on plays like this and Ireland’s shape here looks perfectly placed to take advantage. Byrne’s pass, however, isn’t good enough. Ringrose has to reshape his body to take the ball on his left shoulder so by the time he’s controlled it and brought the ball across his body to release, Alldritt has pressured him enough to lower the quality of the release and Ireland have to reset instead of flowing into space.

There were a few moments like this where players in key swing moments chose poorly. In the first example, I think Ringrose gave the pass a few steps too late and on the second he takes the “smart” option of a kick through when backing his hands and his outside runners was a real option.

This is a structure producing the opportunities it was designed to produce but the decision making at the key point wasn’t what it needed to be. These moments are not always clear cut but when we see what was actually produced relative to what might have been produced, we have to wonder why we’re not backing our hands and runners when there are clear opportunities to use them.  There was no example more egregious than James Lowe’s almost-try during Le Roux’s sin-bin period in the first half.

Ireland launched well off a maul break and freed up Burns off a Henshaw screen. When the ball came to Keenan it was a clear two on one with a good decision almost certainly leading to a try. At this moment, Keenan needed to attack Dulin, who had already drifted out on Lowe’s line and either finish himself or pass when Dulin stood up to tackle him.

Instead, he actually helped Dulin by passing to Lowe while Dulin was in the process of running out to him. That extra second of space-time gave Dulin an opportunity to make a defensive play and he did just that, doing just enough to force Lowe’s boot into touch.

Keenan is a young player with a big upside but this was a moment that the very best teams put away every time. Running defenders onto our attackers or taking too much out of the ball is a constant issue for Ireland.

In the first example here, Byrne just needs to let the ball do the work. Instead, he chews dead metres and brings the French edge defence back into the game.

On the next phases of play, Byrne needs to bring a bit of movement to the play to interest the defenders on his line but he ships the ball on instead. You can see the French cover drifting off Byrne and onto the space where our hitters are aiming for making for tougher offensive collisions and, eventually, a lost possession. Byrne won a penalty for a high tackle on the last play but this was just poor discipline from Willemse, who didn’t need to make that tackle to dominantly win that collision.

This doesn’t always come down to the #10 either, as the what the midfield see and call in these positions is critical. This moment off an early stolen lineout looks particularly egregious for Burns, the player who kicked the ball.

But when you watch the play, there’s no call from outside him to play into space. It seems like everyone commits to kicking this early. We aren’t watching for space and communicating in this instance.

We’re looking for the smart play – kicking this contestably on a turnover to generate a possible flow moment downfield under the high ball. Another moment lost but it was one of many in this game.

Until Ireland start executing these moments, we will continue to lose these games. It’s at the point where a second playmaker – and I don’t think it’s Garry Ringrose at this stage – we will continue to leave opportunities on the table against the very best teams. In that vein, the backline that finished the game reminded me a lot of Leinster when they ran into Prime Saracens over the last two seasons. Look through this sequence of phases and look for inaccurate passes, passes not given, primary playmakers running defenders onto their targets and attack line being laid in inside the pressing radius of the defence.

In the end, Antoine Dupont got the breakdown steal after Keenan was forced to cut back inside – something we did a lot in this game, and not in a way that would hurt France consistently – but the forwards could not resource the ruck.

It was a fitting end. I feel comfortable saying that unless Ireland commits to a dedicated second playmaker, we will continue to grind our gears against teams like France. Maybe this is Joey Carbery at fullback to avoid the heavy traffic that comes with playing primarily at #10, maybe it’s someone like Ciaran Frawley running at #12, or maybe it’s someone else. Whatever it is, our current loadout of players is not producing as it should with the opportunities generated in the system.

Until that changes, nothing will change against the very best. 

Notable Players

The forwards played pretty well here. There were no players that stood out massively for me but there weren’t any poor performances. 

I was interested in Rhys Ruddock’s performance from a role perspective – he mainly ran as a half-lock from what I could make out and while he didn’t have the dominant performance on-ball I was hoping for, he made up for that with some decent lineout work – a poor maul build aside – and decent ruck output. I think he was most effective as a latcher as opposed to a primary ball carrier but I thought he did quite well considering the scale-up in competition from his recent games in the PRO14. 

Ronán Kelleher’s athleticism and power in contact has been a massive plus for Ireland over the last two weekends and he continued that here with a flukey enough ould try it has to be said but a powerful cameo in contact on both sides of the ball. If he can get his throwing accuracy down, he’s got unlimited potential.

Tadhg Furlong looks to be rumbling closer to his game-breaking best with his 27 minutes of action here. His ball carrying looks to be exactly where it left off and, if anything, his passing looks to be even better. The Jukebox looks like it’s got a lot of hits left to play after nearly a full year out on this evidence.

My main issue in this game was with the outside backs.

I thought Jamison Gibson-Park had a decent game but with my usual complaints – inconsistent pass quality ruck to ruck which was highlighted by France giving us a tonne of quick ball. His energy and pace around the ball at the breakdown is based on his deceptive footwork and breaking threat rather than his passing range which, against a team in France who are happy conceding quick ball, can become predictably unpredictable, as it did here. He’s not a bad passer by any means but his accuracy varies too much for me. Still, I thought he was decent here.

Billy Burns and Ross Byrne had 40 minutes each and while they are both incomplete, imperfect options at #10 they suffer from the same issue that bedevils Johnny Sexton in that their weaknesses are highlighted by the structure we are currently running without a second playmaker to handle the primary ball-handling load. I thought we looked more fluid with Burns at #10 in the first half as he is the more mobile of the two options available and has less of the habits I don’t like in this system. Namely chewing up dead metres in possession when the opposition doesn’t rate your breaking threat and/or running defenders onto your passing targets with static, turnstile passing. Byrne is by far the better goal kicker, however, and Burns miss in the first half was a costly one.

I thought James Lowe had another highly visible game, both good and bad.

Defensively speaking, he has to stop Dulin here given that Keenan was completely taken out by the pass back against the flow.

That looks like a bad error but it’s what happens when a playmaker backs his pass to put a dangerous runner in position to make something happen.

Lowe kicked well, carried pretty well and offered threat with the ball in hand but the mistakes on the defensive end are piling up in a way that could make Farrell think about making tough decisions on his undoubted positives versus his shortcomings.

Hugo Keenan is a solid fullback. He’s good in transition, he can offload, he’s got good acceleration with decent backfield positioning and aerial skills – it’s the one area of his game that I think is overrated by the media at large – but the last two weeks have shown up an issue with getting mid-range passes away accurately. This issue won’t show up against an Edinburgh B team getting a 30 point walloping in the RDS on a Friday night or against mid-table, bang average TOP14/GP teams in the Champions Cup. It won’t show up when the play he has to make is an offload in contact or deep in transition, because he does this comfortably at any level, which is why his blown pass to Lowe was such a let-down. Keenan is a very good player but this game showcased more of his downsides than any of us would have wanted and I think he truly comes alive at this level when he’s outside two playmakers, rather than being forced into being one himself.

I have long been of the view that Robbie Henshaw and Garry Ringrose are Ireland’s best midfield pairing but I’m no longer fully sure on that with our backline as currently constructed. My assumptions on this partnership are based on Ringrose being a three-way offensive threat who’s capable of cognitive playmaking, strike running and bringing a balanced kicking game which allows Henshaw to play a little wider than a conventional hitter #12.

I’m not sure that’s an accurate read of where both players currently stand anymore. Ringrose certainly has highly visible moments and breaks that are highly valuable – he regularly gets praised for that on these pages and many others – but when I broke down his actual possessions in this game I saw sub-optimal outcomes time after time after time. Last week was broadly similar.

Is forcing Ringrose into this role of being a midfield “handler” hiding him under a bucket at test level? Is he actually better suited as the guy who receives the pass in the wider quadrants of the field rather than the one who makes a decision on whether to pass or not? This will be hard to discern at club level because it has only ever shown up like this against Prime Saracens for Leinster but both Henshaw and Ringrose had a lot of possessions in this game and we did not look better for it.

The addition of a Joey Carbery as a playmaking fullback behind both of these players changes the context dramatically but that is only a theory. We had a lot of possession in this game; 67% of our rucks were classified as quick ball even though we had 42% positive gainline yet time and again we failed to unlock what France were showing us when we got into wide positions. Neither Henshaw nor Ringrose were bypassed – far from it. Both Ringrose and Henshaw had only one possession fewer than Billy Burns – this is good – but the more they were involved in the second half by Byrne, the poorer they began to look.

Whatever happens, this aspect of our game has to change because we’ve been very quick to point the finger at the forwards and, traditionally, Murray and Sexton but I think the focus has to be on the construction of our outside backline, the roles we’re utilising and how it plays into our overall offensive doctrine.

 

The Wally Ratings: France (H)

The Wally Ratings explainer page is here.  

Players are rated based on their time on the pitch, if they were playing notably out of position, and on the overall curve of the team performance. DNP means the player did not feature and N/A means they weren’t on the pitch long enough to warrant a fair rating.

Names	Rating
Cian Healy	★★★
Rob Herring	★★★
Andrew Porter	★★★
Tadhg Beirne	★★★
Iain Henderson	★★★
Rhys Ruddock	★★★
Josh Van Der Flier	★★★
CJ Stander	★★★
Jamison Gibson-Park	★★★
Billy Burns	★★★
James Lowe	★★
Robbie Henshaw	★★
Gary Ringrose	★★
Keith Earls	★★
Hugo Keenan	★★
Ronan Kelleher	★★★
Ed Byrne	★★★
Tadhg Furlong	★★★
Ultan Dillane	★★★
Will Connors	★★★
Craig Casey	DNP
Ross Byrne	★★★
Jordan Larmour	★★★