[su_dropcap style=”flat”]T[/su_dropcap]here’s something about this Irish U20s side. Sure, there are bigger challenges to come – literally and metaphorically – against France and England, but the manner of the victories this week and last were the right kind of impressive for me at this age level. Ireland were clinical, fuss-free, and showcased shining collective and individual moments of real quality throughout. What more could you want? Well, a bonus point, I suppose, but they got that too on the way to a comprehensive win over a disappointingly sluggish Welsh outfit.
My concern pre-game was that Wales size in the pack would be too much for Ireland to handle over the 80 minutes and I still think that could have been a factor, had the Welsh halfbacks been able to force Ireland to play under more territorial pressure.
Playing this kind of territory game is multifaceted. Tactically, you need the clarity of knowing when to kick. Then, when you have that clarity, you can get down to the physical demands – an accurate kick, an accurate chase and then accurate defensive pressure as the opposition reset. Wales rarely had all three in this game and, most of the time, they had none.
Here’s an early example.
Williams consistently kicked infield on his box exits with the Welsh flanker, Harri Deaves, attempting to pressure the receiver from a central position. Was this to order? If so, it didn’t work on any level.
On the below example, Williams kick goes long in addition to this central targeting, which means the initial receipt of the kick isn’t pressured by anyone. Then Wales lose the wide collision, concede a penalty and give Ireland easy field position.
This happened consistently when Wales tried to exit. When they looked to exit, the kick was usually taken from outside the 22, which meant they couldn’t just look for distance to touch. This seemed to come from a lack of clarity and patience. You can work this scenarios if you find yourself under territorial pressure but Wales consistently went to this muddled box kick strategy – kick too long or infield beyond the reach of the chase, lose the receipt and then lose the transition reset so they don’t even get the territory.
Ireland, on the other hand, had no such issues with their halfback kicking or their overall kicking strategy.
Look at this sequence of kicks and resets that happened directly one after the other, phase for phase.
Where Ireland had clarity and accuracy, Wales had poor execution and, it seems, muddled thinking behind their exit strategy. In an environment where Wales were unable to effectively pressure Ireland in our half, that meant that most of the game was played in the Welsh half where their exits and poor lineout work hindered them over and over again.
Ireland have the kind of backline that you don’t really want to be kicking like this to. In Osbourne, Jennings, Forde, Moxham and Cosgrave, and even Doak, we have pace, size and the distribution to get the ball to space consistently. For me, to hurt Ireland you have to attack our receipt of the ball to prevent the kind of momentum that Osbourne and Moxham, in particular, generated all game.
I get that Wales likely wanted to draw Ireland infield to where they had good defensive numbers so they could attack the first transition breakdown, but they weren’t accurate enough in that either. When Wales kicked like this, it produced Irish tries, directly and indirectly.
First, have a look at an indirect try stared on a kick transition.
The momentum Moxham builds on the runback – which tugs the Welsh forward line up and then back across the field – creates an imbalance that Wales never recover from. When Ireland get into position in the Welsh half we have the structure to get the ball where it needs to go and some poor Welsh reads open up space for Osbourne to make play. It all started with a poor Welsh exit.
Speaking of poor Welsh exits.
This is a classic example of kicking beyond the reach of your chasers and then a less classic, more lesser spotted, “chasing the line of the ball rather than covering the backfield tramline”.
It’s one of those moments where the player just switched off or, failing that, a lack of clarity on their kick return/defence structures lead to a clear running lane being left down the tramline for Doak to attack.
Wales could not manage their territory effectively and, as a result, spent most of the game in sub-optimal field position with no way to effectively move the lines through the boot.
When you look at the stat lines for the game, this stacks up. Wales had 16m 56 seconds worth of possession in this game. Ireland had 16m 39 seconds. Pretty close, right? Looking at time spent in the opposition 22 from a percentage perspective, it’s equally tight between the teams. Wales spent 24% of their possession in the Irish 22. Ireland spent 25%. There’s still nothing in it on those metrics.
Look a little deeper, and you find that Wales spent 56% of their possession in their own half of the field. On the other side, Ireland spent 64% of our possession in the Welsh half. It’s not that Wales didn’t kick – they kicked 10% of their possession, compared to our 4% – it’s just that they didn’t kick efficiently, they didn’t chase accurately, they didn’t contain Ireland on the first few transition rucks and, worse still, they conceded multiple penalties on those sequences. Add in a malfunctioning lineout, a dominant and downright nasty Irish defence and you could see how Wales would feel like they didn’t really fire a shot in this contest.
Ireland were efficient, physical on both sides of the ball – defence in particular – and will still consider large parts of their game, such as the number of handling errors and bad passes they coughed up areas they can tighten up to push them onto the next level.
If last week’s win over Scotland was built on incremental collision dominance as the game wore on and a big advantage in the scrum, this week was built on efficient kicking, outstanding work in transition and sharp, impactful defence.
I keep stressing the challenges to come – England now, in particular – because they won’t have Wales issues in territory management or Scotland’s tighthead weakness in the scrum. How we react in that environment next week – on a shortened turnaround, no less – will decide our Slam and Championship ambitions.
Notable Players
This was a really strong squad performance.
I spoke before the game about Mark Donnelly and the concerns I had for his scrummaging at tighthead. This came from my belief that, while he could cover tighthead, he was a loosehead playing out of position at an age grade where size and power count for a whole lot. The Welsh tighthead, for example, was listed at 120KG. Size isn’t everything, for sure, but when it comes to pinning down scrums at this level, that heft helps. Donnelly, at 110KG, would be light for the position, even at U20.
Now watch how Donnelly keeps these scrums locked down and stable on his side.
He gets low, he braces, he defends against attacks, he more than holds his own. He lifted well at the lineout, grew into the offensive and defensive collisions as the game went on and had a bloody good 63 minutes against decent opposition.
Creatively, I thought Corkery and Forde dovetailed really well here. Corkery threw a few bricks off either side, for sure, but he facilitated the play really well in this game. I’d still like a little more carrying in his game to mix up his involvements but I was pretty happy with his output here.
Cathal Forde, on the other hand, is the offensive fulcrum of this Irish backline in my opinion. This game was a great illustration of his ability to play that blended #12 role – he crashed the ball at the set-piece, was threatening with the ball in hand during phase attack, impacted well in defence and linked the wider plays together really well. His pop in contact really opens up opportunities for his passing game which is, obviously, still developing like all facets in all of these players but if Forde can balance that passing with his dynamism in contact, there’s a very special player here potentially.
Nathan Doak is a player who fits in that “special” category too. This isn’t meant as a passive dig at McKee, the starting #9 last week but Doak was a different level of player here. His kicking – from hand and at goal – was superb throughout, he really challenged the Welsh fringe defence like I hoped he would and his pass accuracy from ruck to ruck was pretty good for the most part.
That area of his game in tandem with his phase decision making would be an area that he needs to scale up, in my opinion, because he did lose his way on some sequences that went off-script once or twice. That will come with time, though, and stuff like his breaking ability, durability in contact and the quality and variety of his kicking was highly impressive. The biggest compliment you could pay him right now is that he looks like he’s ready to take over the all-encompassing role currently occupied by John Cooney and previously occupied by Ruan Pienaar at Ulster sooner rather than later. ★★★★★
This was another outstanding performance by Alex Kendellen. He just gets the game at a deep level. You can see it in the quality of his involvements ruck to ruck in defence, on attacking phase play and on both sides of the ball at the breakdown.
He doesn’t really make mistakes, which at this level is remarkable given the number of involvements he has in all facets of the game. Last time out, you could point out certain aspects of his offensive breakdown work weren’t dominant enough. This week, those holes in his performance, so much as you could even call them holes, seemed to be shored right up. He was lighting up Welsh poaches on his one-man entries and producing smooth possession.
On the Irish set-piece, Kendellen was showcasing his IQ repeatedly. On the scrum before this example, Kendellen broke wide posts left and was a good tackle by Mann away from nailing Sam Costelow with the try line glinting in the background.
On the next scrum in a similar position a few minutes later, Kendellen sold the exact same look to Costelow behind the scrum. He angles his body posts left, he tilts his shoulder, he dips as if collecting the ball and he even breaks posts left after the ball goes.
What does this do? It delays Sam Costelow on his route across to track, which means the Welsh #10 has to over chase and, as a result, he has absolutely nothing for Cathal Forde on the crash ball.
It’s the small little things. They build and build into big things and the kind of constant involvements that make you wonder exactly how many Alex Kendellens are on the field, actually. This was a game where Kendellen would directly face-off with Carwyn Tuipulotu and Christ Tshiunza – two massive, high-potential players – and you wonder what the big deal was about them. That’s how good Kendellen was in this game, the kind of good that makes you wonder just how far he can go as a player or how high his ceiling actually is. I think this guy has levels upon levels to grow into. He’s been as good in these two games as I can remember any U20 being at this level. England this Thursday will be a step up again but I really feel that Kendellen has the game to thrive as the levels increase. Absolute quality.
★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: Wales U20 (A)
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 |
|---|---|
| Jack Boyle | ★★★★ |
| Ronan Loughnane | ★★★★ |
| Mark Donnelly | ★★★★ |
| Alex Soroka | ★★★★ |
| Harry Sheridan | ★★★★ |
| Donnacha Byrne | ★★★ |
| Oisín McCormack | ★★★★ |
| Alex Kendellen | ★★★★★ |
| Nathan Doak | ★★★★★ |
| Tim Corkery | ★★★★ |
| Chris Cosgrave | ★★★ |
| Cathal Forde | ★★★★ |
| Shane Jennings | ★★★★ |
| Ben Moxham | ★★★ |
| Jamie Osbourne | ★★★★ |
| Eoin de Buitléar | ★★★ |
| George Saunderson | ★★★ |
| Sam Illo | ★★★ |
| Ben Carson | ★★★ |
| Jude Postlethwaite | ★★★ |
| Daniel Okeke | ★★★★ |
| Conor Rankin | ★★★ |
