The reaction of the press in the aftermath of this game feels a little bit like when you execute a risky overtake on a country road and get a bit of a fright when you see a tractor coming the opposite way a little too quickly and a little too close.
You get back on your side in time, of course, and you were never really close to crashing in reality but your adrenal glands think differently. Your heart is hammering, you’re white-knuckling the steering wheel and you think to yourself – man, that was close, but look, I’m grand and I’ll know better the next time – before driving like the world’s calmest chauffeur for the rest of the trip.
That feeling of elation mixed with the forewarned prudence of danger averted is the big feeling I’m detecting around the place after this win.
Let’s not forget that, ultimately, Ireland won this game by showing excellent “oh no you don’t” ruthlessness when it mattered, quite like the All Blacks of the last decade had when it came to putting away a plucky opponent who wouldn’t stay down. The Slam is still on, which is all that matters ultimately, for now, but this game was far from the illustration of superior Irish depth that some have portrayed it as.
We don’t have depth, we have pillar players who run deep.
Ireland’s ten pillars are, in no particular order;
Sexton, Ringrose, Doris, Furlong, Porter, Henshaw, Sheehan, Keenan, O’Mahony and Kelleher.
A bit like Leinster – in fact, exactly like Leinster – there are a minimum number of these pillars that Ireland can feature in a match day squad and hope to win games of a certain level at a certain level.
The six pillars that played here are about the fewest we can select on a match day before results start to fluctuate because these players are the bedrock of everything good about this Irish side. Why was this game still in the balance at the 70-minute mark? Because Italy has improved to the point where Ireland probably needs seven pillars to put them away like we would have done last season.
The guys who slot in alongside them and around them – our “depth” – could literally be anyone up to a certain level because of the strength of the pillars. This is why I don’t think Ireland have depth right now, at least depth that we can rely on to win a World Cup because if Furlong stays in that weird shadow zone where he’s hurt consistently, Sexton keeps picking up injuries that keep him out for two to three weeks at a time and Kelleher/Henshaw continues their unfortunate injury bug of the last few seasons, we’re down to relying on the ongoing game to game availability of Porter, Ringrose, Doris and Sheehan to keep us on an even keel. If Doris picks up an injury between now and the World Cup we have no one that we can say with certainty that would replace what he does for this team. Not play #8 – because Gavin Coombes could do that pretty easily, in my opinion – I’m talking about replacing what Doris does for this team, which is everything. He splits roles mid-game and does both of them – heavy combo flanker and power forward – to an elite level. He isn’t as good as specialist role players in those positions but no one can do both of them to the level of Caelan Doris in 2023.
Having watched back a few times now, I think what this game actually shows is that the pillar players we played – Porter, Kelleher/Sheehan and Doris, in particular – are needed to win games like this, even against a heavily flawed if improving opponent like Italy. We do not have any players anywhere close to replicating what those pillar players give us. If they play, We win most games we play.
But the same is true for the pillars that didn’t play. Sexton has never looked more important after a stodgy, URC test window vibe game from Ross Byrne and Gary Ringrose’s defensive importance was shown up in neon lights by all that occurred in his absence.
As an offensive threat, I rate Ringrose as an upper mid-level talent at the elite end of the game. He’s a decent kicker and passer, a good runner with the ball in hand and, for me, he’s fairly average creatively. As a defender – in both his physical application and his intelligence – he is up there with Lukhanyo Am as the best in the world, in my opinion.
This game showcased what he does for this Ireland side purely by what happened in his absence.
A counter-transition team like Ireland needs to have an edge defender with the kind of pace, IQ and defensive radius to guard the most obvious space on the field after a long kick upfield – the flank on the other side of the pitch from the kicker. This is where O’Mahony and Ringrose are particularly valuable. If Ireland didn’t play a heavy counter-transition game, Ringrose and O’Mahony might not be pillar players in this team but we do, so they are. James Lowe is an important component of this Irish side too, just below pillar level, for me, because he has to be compensated for defensively on counter-transition sequences which Ringrose does really, really well.
When Ringrose or O’Mahony are not in the starting edge defence, teams can and will get at our edge. I spoke about this on the Blood & Thunder Podcast pre-game and it came to pass, something I mention only because it would also be noticed and exploited by Italy. Wake up babe, the hot new systemic weakness just dropped.
Without Ringrose covering the edge spaces – and O’Mahony – our transition defence was more prone to getting tugged off balance by the Italian width and pace on the runback.
At the set piece, Italy’s constant pressure on the #10 channel combined with really good tip passing and layering repeatedly hurt Ireland in the wider channels. This example shows the unbalancing effect mixed with some counter-transition work afterwards.
I’m not saying Sexton gets across and makes contact with the runner in this example – I’m saying Ringrose probably does. Aki is far more suited to #12 at this stage of his career, certainly at test level so you’ll see no criticism from me that he isn’t as springy or as pacey as a guy younger and lighter than him on a week’s notice, as most. Counter-transition demands pace on the edges in defence and I think that was copperfastened for Farrell here. It didn’t kill us against Italy but it made us look as vulnerable as any team has in attack over the last few test season.
That is notable.
Offensively, we looked pretty good even with Ross Byrne looking pretty static at times. The thing is though if this system needed pace to make it work Sexton would have retired years ago. The difference between Byrne and Sexton is that the latter is a far more powerful athlete so he creates compressions himself that he can then exploit. They aren’t the biggest compressions but Sexton is one of the most accurate passers in the Six Nations so he can find those windows.
Byrne isn’t a breaking threat at all so his passing has to be incrementally better to double down on the width and speed on the ball he was getting from Casey. He just had to keep the pace moving without filtering it down to ball we couldn’t use. James Lowe ended up having very similar on-ball numbers to Byrne in the end which showed his value as an auxiliary midfielder and layered handler.
Jack Crowley’s two-minute spell at the end of the game – always the hallmark of a skittish coach, in my opinion – showed what could be possible with a player who has pace AND a legit breaking threat but that seems far from the mind of the head coach at the moment.
Ultimately, when we needed scores we had the first-phase accuracy and the offensive fireworks of Aki, Lowe, Doris, Murray and Hansen to make things happen for us against a team that we knew would give us opportunities.
The Slam should – should – take care of itself from here, as Ireland are faced with two tricky but heavily flawed opponents. I have concerns over the World Cup, though, and what happens if something shakes four or five pillars out of the game when we need all ten but for now, let’s just focus on the road, turn on the radio and get home.
| Names | Rating |
|---|---|
| Andrew Porter | ★★★★ |
| Ronan Kelleher | ★★★★ |
| Finlay Bealham | ★★★ |
| Iain Henderson | ★★★ |
| James Ryan | ★★★ |
| Jack Conan | ★★ |
| Josh Van Der Flier | ★★★★ |
| Caelan Doris | ★★★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★ |
| Ross Byrne | ★★★ |
| James Lowe | ★★★★ |
| Stuart McCloskey | ★★★ |
| Bundee Aki | ★★★ |
| Mack Hansen | ★★★★ |
| Hugo Keenan | ★★★★ |
| Dan Sheehan | ★★★★ |
| Dave Kilcoyne | ★★★ |
| Tom O'Toole | ★★★ |
| Ryan Baird | ★★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★★ |
| Jack Crowley | N/A |
| Jimmy O'Brien | ★★★ |
