I had a good idea of the things Argentina needed to do against Ireland to get a win in this game and, as you can tell by looking at the scoreline, they didn’t manage to do any of them for very long or to any real effect.
That’s what Ireland are right now – a very efficient team that you need to find a way to stop before you can think about winning. How did we get here? I keep going back to March of this year and that England game. Up to that point, Ireland had laboured across the four games of the 2021 Six Nations. A loss to Wales – that should have been a win, red card or not – a comprehensive loss to France with a flattering scoreboard, a scratchy win over Scotland and the usual handy win against Italy. But then that England game seemed to change everything. We haven’t looked like the same team since.
When I go through that game, I can see the roots of the style that has blown away Japan, New Zealand and now Argentina.
Ask yourself if the sequence below reminds you of what we’ve seen from Ireland in these last three weekends?
Looping wingers, wingers at first receiver, a flowing 3-2 attacking system and forwards making big gains in wide-role positions – this could be a clip from the last three weeks, easily. Ireland have built on what worked in that game against England and then some. This win over Argentina wasn’t as high intensity as last week’s win over the All Blacks and, realistically, was never likely to be but it showed all the hallmarks of the successes of the last few weeks.
This version of Ireland looks like the best possible version of Conor O’Shea’s Italy side of 2018/19 that had Mike Catt as their attack coach. A lot of the shapes and concepts that we saw there have been fine-tuned and supercharged with the Ireland of 2021. The flowing 3-2-X structure, the gradual move to multiple playmakers, the looping wingers – these are not new concepts but the comfort that this Irish group have in moving through them and taking the opportunities presented IS new. Ireland showed glimpses of this style in the 2021 Six Nations even prior to that England game but my biggest issue was the opportunities left behind repeatedly. In November 2021, we are taking those opportunities and executing at a much higher level and all in an environment where we are dominating the physical exchanges like never before.
So there isn’t really a mystery about where Ireland’s performances have come from.
The seeds have been there for a while – since the start of the Six Nations, in reality – but what has supercharged Ireland’s performances to the level we’ve seen this November? I think a big portion of that answer is relatively simple. Sure, Ireland are playing with more comfort and cohesion thanks to two full seasons under this coaching group’s instruction and it shows but I think it’s something even simpler than that.
It is the regular inclusion of Andrew Porter, Ronan Kelleher, and Caelan Doris as starting components in the pack.
The addition of these three players to the starting pack has been a game-changer for this Irish side. Doris missed most of the Six Nations through a concussion. Ronan Kelleher was still finding his feet as a starter at test level and Andrew Porter was a guy who would only play the latter part of most big games as the 1B to Tadhg Furlong’s 1A.
When you put all of those three guys together and add in some of the excellent role players around them like O’Mahony, Beirne, Henderson, Ryan, Conan and Van Der Flier alongside hugely encouraging younger players like Ryan Baird and Dan Sheehan, in particular, and you have a team that can win collisions against pretty much anyone. And if you can win collisions against pretty much anyone and you have good players – and we do – you’ll win more games than you lose with the dominance of the collisions on both sides of the ball usually dictating by how much.
That was a good example of the kind of physical dominance Ireland had for the vast majority of this game. Argentina – drained and running on fumes, physically and mentally, at the end of a long test season – started brightly but had very little for Ireland outside a few brief flurries.
Thing is, those brief flurries should have been enough to put them into a three-point lead heading into the last five minutes of the first half.
They put a different context on the half, right? That’s the sliding door game of missed opportunities that Ireland know well from earlier in the season.
Instead of looking into a three-point deficit and an energized opponent, Ireland went back down the field stitched an excellent series of phases together and essentially killed the game stone dead as a contest right before half-time. It didn’t quite knock the stuffing out of Argentina but.
Argentina pushed hard at the start of the second half but coughed up two close-range opportunities with some scandalously bad red zone lineout work. When Thomas Lavanini got red-carded for a needlessly stupid shot on Cian Healy, the game was over as a contest and it became a game of how much Ireland would win by.
Turns out it was 44 points.
Ireland had far too much for an Argentina side without a functioning lineout when it mattered, poor discipline, awful goal kicking and shoddy enough maul defence when it came to it. Pre-game, it seemed like Argentina had selected a four lock pack but they defended Ireland’s drive really poorly and without sophistication.
I’ll get to that on the GIF Room this week but it was really telling that a side seemingly picked specifically to stop Ireland building our attack off the maul were completely unable to stop us physically or technically. Five of Ireland’s six tries came from mauls or maul breaks which is largely on trend with where we were in the Six Nations but it also puts the challenge out there – whoever can stop Ireland at the lineout and lineout drive can hurt us.
During phase play and our first phase off the set piece we looked pretty good. Our overall attacking work was pretty mixed, despite the heftiness of the win. A brand new starting 8/9/10/12 and some pre-game disruption to the starting pack wasn’t going to help our attacking cohesion but to say that it was “poor” or even “average” would be a gross exaggeration. It was pretty good, for the most part, but it was helped by some outstanding ball carrying and offensive breakdown work in the middle of the field.
Our offensive breakdown work has been a massive highlight for the last two games and this was no different. When you are playing off this kind of platform, the odd slow delivery from the ruck or disjointed phase playscheme isn’t fatal or even all that painful.
Things got really interesting when Ireland went to a distinct double playmaker system in the second half.
The combination of Casey’s lightning pace at the breakdown – he is quick-ball personified – and two distinct ball handlers outside him and playing off the forward pressure Ireland were exerting – never mind the threat of Ringrose, Henshaw and the other de-facto midfielder James Lowe, presented some interesting pictures throughout the last thirty minutes that might show another facet of what Ireland are capable of in the post-Sexton era which, sooner or later, we’re going to have to navigate.
All in all, this was a fine win that rounded out an excellent Autumn Nations Series for Ireland that showcased what might be possible for this team going forward. We can’t separate the effect of playing teams ensconced in long COVID bubbles away from their families from the emphatic nature of these results. That isn’t to say that these are “artificial” results but it would be a mistake to start getting Grand Slam 22 t-shirts made before Christmas, just like it was a mistake to demand Andy Farrell be sacked after the Welsh game back in the Spring.
This has been good, very good. But I think the biggest, most realistic level check this Irish team will face in the year ahead – when we are not the team at the end of a long season ensconced in a COVID bubble – will be in Paris and London.
But for just this month?
A+ stuff.
Notable Players
This was a very well balanced performance that, if I was to go through every five-star performer, I’d need another 2000 words. I’ll round out my thoughts on this in the Five Star Podcast. I’ll list my top three, after a few mentions about the other performers.
I rated Conor Murray down for this game. I don’t think he played badly, just below what I think he’s capable of. His service was slow and a little hesitant and that was my main issue. That’s not necessarily a problem – Murray hasn’t really been a super quick mover of the ball for a few years now – but you’ve got to make top drawer decisions and execute the pass options really well. I don’t think Conor did that here, and his usual kicking excellence looked a little outdated.
Joey Carbery had his best game for quite a while and, while he still feels a little off his very best, I think this 80-minute performance will go a long way to sync up the picture between what he sees and what he knows he can do. He stood up to some real off-the-ball treatment and put some shots on in defence. Good stuff.
Josh Van Der Flier is a very, very complete player in the Small Forward role set. He just does everything really well and when he’s playing in a system like this, he’s always in the right place, at the right time, doing the thing that best suits what he’s good at. As long as Ireland use a Small Forward like this, Van Der Flier will be top of the chart for the next few seasons. Excellent. ★★★★★
Peter O’Mahony moved up into the starting pack pre-game but played like he’d been selected to start back on Tuesday. He was everywhere, doing everything, just like he does when he’s playing at his best and he really was playing at his best here.
Big Game Pete wins you rugby matches and Big Game Pete showed up to play on-ball, in the tackle and at the breakdown. ★★★★★
What can you say about Tadhg Beirne that hasn’t already been said a hundred times by a hundred other writers? That’s he’s good? Of course, he’s good. That’s he’s great? Yeah, I think he’s great – a potential modern great with as rounded a skillset as any forward in the game.
Since he added lineout calling to his repertoire – one of the most difficult skills to master – his value to Ireland and Munster has skyrocketed as a player who can literally slot into five of the seven slots available to him in the back five and be a game-winner in all of them.
He carried the ball 11 times, he passed 7 times, he made 14 tackles, he was Ireland’s primary lineout target and stole one of theirs and he did it for the full 80 minutes.
You could get into the idea of thinking that Tadhg Beirne is a unicorn, but he’s really a template for what a modern back five forward can and should play like. He’s got the lineout skills of a traditional lock forward, he can scrummage, he can be a primary ball carrier, he can rack up the tackles, he can move the ball, he can poach like he’s a 6’0″ groundhog in a 6’6″ frame. Beirne is the modern back five forward and this game is great example of what that actually means in practicality. The total package. ★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: Argentina (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 |
|---|---|
| Andrew Porter | ★★★★ |
| Ronan Kelleher | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Furlong | ★★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★★ |
| James Ryan | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★★★ |
| Josh Van Der Flier | ★★★★★ |
| Caelan Doris | ★★★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★ |
| Joey Carbery | ★★★★ |
| James Lowe | ★★★ |
| Robbie Henshaw | ★★★ |
| Garry Ringrose | ★★★★ |
| Robert Baloucoune | ★★★ |
| Hugo Keenan | ★★★ |
| Dan Sheehan | ★★★★ |
| Cian Healy | ★★★ |
| Tom O'Toole | ★★★ |
| Ryan Baird | ★★★★ |
| Nick Timoney | ★★★ |
| Craig Casey | ★★★★ |
| Harry Byrne | ★★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★ |
