Anyone who read The Green Eye before the game would have known that Australia had the potential to be a really bad matchup for this Ireland side and the game roughly played out exactly like that. It was a slim three-point win – secured off the boot of the nerveless Ross Byrne – but that win was only secured in the end by a technical maul infringement a metre out from the Irish line in the last five minutes.
When I watch this game back once, twice and then a third time I found myself developing a real feeling of unease. Maybe that was to do with the run time of this game which came in at 1 hour and 48 minutes. But no – it was something else.
Then it dawned on me. No Sexton.
When the captain pulled in the warmup and thrust Jack Crowley into the spotlight with about as little notice as you can get, it was going to be disruptive.
Ireland are a system team – the system team, you might say – and we revolve around Sexton. His tendencies, his play action, his decisions, his charisma, his leadership. If Prime Ireland were a human body, Sexton would be the brain, the eyes and the nervous system. So, like, critically important. If we are forced to play with a different brain we tend to need a lot of notice so as not to spook the arms and legs to stretch the metaphor to breaking point. Other players need to take more responsibilities during the week and we need to scheme for it and around it. I fully believe that if Ireland had committed to running with Jack Crowley last Monday then we wouldn’t have looked so spooked in the first half where Jamison Gibson Park seemed to take the bulk of Ireland’s game running on himself.
It’s an understandable decision in some ways. The Alpha & Omega of the team pulled out so close to kickoff that Crowley had to literally wear Johnny’s jersey – now there’s a metaphor – because that’s how rock solid certain Ireland were that Sexton was starting this until literally the last minute. In that context, it would make sense if Gibson Park decided he was going to be the Senior International and take the tactical kicking load of the game onto himself. But in doing so, he took Crowley out of the first half almost entirely.
Gibson Park only passed to Crowley directly twice in the first 40 minutes and, weirdly enough, kicked more of his possession (13%) than he has all year long with the exception of the Scotland game in the Six Nations and one other game that I’ll mention later.
In context, that Scottish game was in the face of a lot of box-kicking generally (Ali Price kicked 12% of all his possessions in that game, for example) so to see a similar number against Australia seemed particularly off-scheme. Against South Africa, for example, where Ireland schemed to box kick directly from the start Murray’s kicking ratio was just 10% of his possessions and both sides kicked 8.8/8.9% of their possessions in total.
Against Australia, we kicked 10.1% of our possessions compared to Australia’s 8.6%.
So did the coaching staff or Gibson Park himself decide to reduce the involvement of the #10? It’d be interesting to know if Gibson Park was playing to order or whether he decided to take that load on himself of his own accord. A Ball Played By Hand percentage of 87% is very low for Gibson Park.
Actually, the last time that happened outside of the Scotland game was away in France in the Six Nations where… Joey Carbery started instead of Sexton, who got injured the previous week. That was in the face of a lot of French kick pressure, to be fair, but even in that game, we didn’t outkick France when it came to the percentage of possessions we kicked in total.
In this game, our early kicking game ensured that Australia dominated possession and, had they not decided to commit three neck roll penalties across their sequences, they could well have started the game with a try inside the first few minutes. We had 33% territory in the first half and only 39% possession against an Australian side more physical and ball-dominant than South Africa with better, more competent half-backs. It’s a miracle we didn’t concede more in that first half and that’s as much down to gritty, gutsy last-ditch defence as it is scandalously poor Australian discipline.
In the first 40 minutes, we played as “flat” and direct as we have done all year and didn’t look any better for it. There was very little screen action, most of the playmaking happened off #9 and when we did kick long, it was rarely “on-scheme” with what we’ve seen from Ireland previously.
I suppose my point is this; when Sexton is out for a Cat A international game against the likes of South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, England or France, does our high Pass Per Carry game go with him?
I ask because the change after half-time was notable. Did the strategy adjust at half-time or was Gibson Park adjusted?
Either way, what was changed worked. Ireland were far more fluid in the second half and began to stress Australia on phase play and counter-transition even after they were back to a full complement of 15.
The issue I have with that first 40 minutes is that it reflects what we’ve done when we’ve been presented with a big test match without Sexton – we’ve shut down a little and gone off-scheme. That’s understandable though – we had a late, late change to our most important player so why wouldn’t we adjust? My issue there, again, is that this was avoidable and relatively predictable. Sexton isn’t going to get more durable, he’s only going to get more prone to knocks.
It’s a comforting thought to think that Australia didn’t just demonstrate that they understood our system and were a metre away from proving it. It’s actually far easier to believe that Sexton would have powered Ireland to a comfortable 10-point lead but I think those are sweet little lies.
In the circumstances, I thought Crowley did well when he was actually used in the same way that Sexton would have been. Raw in some regards, as you’d expect, but he was also showing some of the qualities that make this Irish system work. There’s no doubting how tough this game was though, or how close we came to losing it, especially when Australia wheeled their power forwards off the bench around 50 minutes. In a way, we were quite fortunate that Tupou suffered an injury that took him off the pitch soon after he’d won a massive scrum penalty because we struggled enough to contain Skelton, Samu and Fainga’a. Ireland really started to creak in the last five minutes after Ross Byrne’s outstanding kick in the aftermath of a scrum penalty that genuinely could have gone either way.
Australia’s power was really starting to tell and we were conceding the kind of breakdown penalties you do when you’re struggling to live with the opposition. Penalties for not rolling away, and guys getting trapped in the ruck – one of those lead to the close-range lineout maul that decided the game.
Win that maul, and Australia win. Lose it and Ireland win. That’s what it came down to.
From there, Ireland managed to see out the win despite getting 15m off the resultant penalty, losing the lineout and scrapping away 10m from our tryline in red time.
What this game does show is that there is a rod of steel running through the back of this Irish side. I do genuinely feel that teams have our attacking framework more or less worked out and at least three of the other 9 top ten sides have the ability to nullify us, as Australia did here and would have done even with Sexton – but maybe not Henshaw – in the starting XV.
What most teams do not have, though, is an ability to break us down with anything close to ease or comfort. Ireland are a teak tough defensive side who, framework firing or not, are so hard to break down in any phase of the game. The only worry for me would be the scrum but that is almost entirely referee-dependent in the modern game.
If it comes down to guts and an ability to dog out a narrow win, I’d back this Irish side against literally anyone in the modern test environment and that’s a pretty valuable quality to have.
Where are this Ireland side a year out from the World Cup? We’re favourites. Can we execute that tag into lifting the Webb Ellis trophy in Paris next year?
With a bit of luck, absolutely. Anything less would be a failure for the talent and guts in this squad.
| Names | Rating |
|---|---|
| Andrew Porter | ★★★ |
| Dan Sheehan | ★★★ |
| Tadhg Furlong | ★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★ |
| James Ryan | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★ |
| Josh Van Der Flier | ★★★ |
| Caelan Doris | ★★★★★ |
| Jamison Gibson Park | ★★ |
| Jack Crowley | ★★★ |
| Jimmy O'Brien | ★★ |
| Stuart McCloskey | ★★★ |
| Garry Ringrose | ★★★★★ |
| Mack Hansen | ★★★ |
| Hugo Keenan | ★★★★ |
| Rob Herring | ★★★ |
| Cian Healy | ★★★ |
| Finlay Bealham | ★★★ |
| Joe McCarthy | ★★★ |
| Jack Conan | ★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★ |
| Ross Byrne | ★★★ |
| Bundee Aki | ★★★★ |
