The pressure is on. Increased, even.
I should preface that the pressure I’m referring to is “media pressure”. I’m sure that the pressure to deliver a home win in the Six Nations is what it always has been and always should be. Wales are very recent World Cup semi-finalists (who could have easily won against South Africa on another day) and, of course, incumbent Grand Slam champions so it isn’t too much of a stretch to see them beating Ireland this weekend.
I’m also sure that Andy Farrell could have mitigated some of that external media pressure on himself by starting Max Deegan, John Cooney, and Ronan Kelleher this weekend but he’s smart enough to realise that it would only make the week leading to the game easier, not the actual game itself. Which is bizarre, because Farrell has selected two high-potential young players on the bench and they will certainly see significant time off the bench. Yet for some – a lot of whom were in my mentions on Tuesday – this wasn’t enough, the change needed to happen now. I’m not sure Ireland can work it that way at the moment. The change will and must come to a number of positions. It’s inevitable. But for right now, I think the right squad has been selected and that the opprobrium that’s directed at players like O’Mahony, Murray and Stander (not 33-year-old Devin Toner, for some reason) is misdirected.
Don’t get me wrong, Deegan, Doris and Kelleher have a lot of potential at test level. Of the three, I rate Doris the highest – if he stays fit, I think he’s got starting Lion potential – but the other two look like multi-cap internationals right now and who knows how test rugby will accelerate them. The same is somewhat true about John Cooney in so far as that he’ll be 30 this May so he’s less about what he might be and more about what he can bring right now, which for me is as a top-class game-changer off the bench. Maybe that will change after this weekend.
Ultimately, my point is that Test level is not the same as Champions Cup rugby. If anything, I think the gap between the two levels has actually increased over the past two years and success at one level doesn’t automatically translate upwards every time. The game at test level is as fast, tough and difficult as it has ever been.
Nowhere is that more starkly illustrated than in our opponents this weekend. The Welsh regions are almost universally a basket case individually but with Wales, all of their collective weaknesses disappear to leave a formidable, physical and elite opponent with no real weaknesses anywhere.
All that said, I think Ireland can catch Wales this weekend.
For me, much of the criticism that Joe Schmidt shipped in the aftermath of Ireland’s poor 2019 is displaced criticism of the Irish pack in general and the Irish tight five in particular. The quality of our tight setup phases over the last year – essentially our ability to chain together successive positive tight carries off #9 – has really degraded, in my opinion.
Here’s a sequence that sums up what I’m talking about. Three phases where the ball degrades incrementally ruck for ruck.
This lead to a slow ball kick reset where we conceded a penalty post-chase.
It started pretty averagely – Stander gets a 1 on 1 isolation with Gray, wins the contact point and presents quick ball but we couldn’t snare in any extra Scottish defenders. The ball is quick though, and that’s a positive. The next phase has Van Der Flier acting to stick the pillar defence with a tight option line.
Van Der Flier’s line slowed down the ability of Watson and Sutherland to get around the corner on the next phase by sticking them on our blindside. That action gave us a forward on forward collision at the seam of the Scottish defence between Ryan and Cummings that, if we could win, would give us a “time” advantage on the next phase.
All we had to do was win the collision dominantly, and we could have a cut off the Scottish openside defence with Hamish Watson having to make up a lot of ground. They would be behind time – chasing to catch up with us – while we would be playing ahead of their defensive reset.
You can see Ryan shaping his footwork to get a low shunt on Cummings but he can’t quite get the squeeze on him to drive through with his legs in that classic low-grind that Ryan’s made a speciality of. In truth, we’re taking this ball really static from the off.
Every Scottish forward is inside this contact point so a collision win here would be invaluable.
In just two carries off #9, we could have unbalanced their forward defensive line, pinned Hastings close to the ruck and possibly had a crack off their openside defence but we don’t win the contact point, our ruck isn’t won dominantly either and the ball slows down in Scotland’s favour.
After this phase, I think we had settled on a kicking structure so had come back to the 15m channel to set the platform for the kick but didn’t dominate that contact either.
Remember, a successful collision is one that produces gainline, generates quick ball and/or commits more than two opposition defenders to the contact point. The very best gainline wins have all three qualities.
When we judge this aspect of the game, we can see the value of reliable ball carriers. Look at the below carry. How would you rate it?
For me, this is an excellent carry. It was low risk off the ruck, we didn’t lose ground and, crucially, we pulled in FIVE Scottish primary defenders.
We’ve bought a bad fold from Richie (#5 in the graphic above) but this collision point created a huge contact zone that drastically shortened the opposition defensive line. Remember, in the game of collision, the attack can afford to lose players to offensive rucks but if the defence loses more than two they have to slow down the ball to the point that the defence can reshape around the contact point.
For me, you don’t need to throw offloads out of a collision like this because once you throw that ball it’s a question mark. In this instance, Stander and his cleaning pod took out four defenders and created a scenario where a fifth would take himself out.
When the ball came back from the ruck, even as slow as it was, it had committed enough defenders to make the next phase a go-er for Ireland.
The minute the ball leaves the ruck, the pillar defender is out of the game and the Scottish primary line is down to three defenders. Maitland tries to shoot up to stop the wide pass but the damage was already done by a simple, direct carry off #9.
Against Wales, we’ll get a similar look at their wider seams because they will invest a lot of energy in stopping our setups off #9. We’re going to play “out” behind screens a fair bit to get around what’s been a traditional problem for us against Wales and we might get a bit of change from Tompkins blitzing near the edges. But, for me, nothing we do against Wales will be effective if our front five aren’t dominating these narrow contact points.
Henderson needs a big game here. This is just one example of some of his sub-par work around the contact area last weekend.
I feel for Healy here – the pass from Larmour is on the verge of the hospital variety – but I want to see way more aggression and domination of the space by Henderson in this scenario against Wales.
When I went looking at the breakdown versus Scotland, I saw a lot of Iain Henderson just existing there, rather than projecting himself. I think that Iain Henderson had the potential to be a top second-row in this tournament, but I need to see more from him and others in the front five in this game.
