This is a very special Ireland u20s team.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer and one game doesn’t make a tournament but I’d challenge anyone to watch this game back and not be excited by the potential of this Irish side on the evidence of this thrilling win over England in Santa Fe on Tuesday evening.

I think the real thrill of these championships is in that excitement. We are watching the future of Irish Rugby being played out in front of us. There’s no delivering on potential here and all the hard questions and pressure that comes with it; it just a wild exhibition of that potential. Are we looking at the 2019 versions of James Ryan, Jordan Larmour, Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony, Iain Henderson and Garry Ringrose? The beauty of it is that we very well could be.

And it’s exhilarating to watch.

***

Beating this English u20 side twice inside six months is no mean feat.

Doing it with an eight-point margin in February and then doubling that tally in June against a side that has competed in nine of the last eleven U20 World Championship finals is an achievement in itself, regardless of what happens in the next few weeks.

This is a big England side with a lot of pro experience. Their centre partnership, Fraser Dingwall and Cameron Redpath, have more pro appearances between them than every Irish player selected put together and 14 of those pro appearances belong to Angus Kernohan. Their near 20 stone tighthead prop, Joe Heyes, has 22 senior caps for Leicester Tigers. The man opposite him in the scrum – Josh Wycherley – joined the Munster academy this December and has yet to make a senior appearance.

Everywhere you looked in this side there was either a size or experience mismatch between Ireland and England and yet here we are looking at a 16 point Irish win. Did England’s indiscipline cost them? Absolutely. I think they came out with a lot of chat about sending a message physically ringing in their ears after the defeat in Musgrave Park last season and it backfired, to an extent. They ended up with two yellow cards and a red card during this game and, for my money, were lucky enough to leave with just that. But it wasn’t just the indiscipline.

Ireland played with a tempo and width that tore at the seams of the English defence.

Whenever you see physically smaller men dominating the gainline against a side the size of this English team – Kpoku in the second row is nearly 6’5″ and 20 stone – you have to look at things outside just raw physicality.

Have a look at this attacking sequence from Ireland. It doesn’t go anywhere in particular, but there are a few key parts to look at.

There’s nothing fancy here. Ireland are moving the ball into the “strike” area, eating up a lot of English defensive space and then surging into the soft edges before doing the same on the reverse. Our rucking and ball presentation is good too but what makes this work is the width and pace we get on the pass from the base of the ruck at the start of each phase.

Casey’s pass to Flannery skips out four English defenders and puts Flannery on an outside angle approach with an isolation to attack on the edge of the English defence. Casey’s pass has enough pace on it that Flannery is already in an advanced position relative to the English line speed and can feed Kernohan in a really positive position.

Turner’s blocking line on the edge defender creates the isolation for Ireland to make a big gain down the wings through Hughes. We’re not looking to bully the phase when it isn’t on – we’re looking to work the English defence.

Casey’s aggressive support running beyond the advantage line means he’s always in place to move the ball and when we come back across the field through Wycherley and then wider again. The pace we got at the ruck meant that our attacking line had incrementally more space and time to work with.

Look at the speed and range of Casey’s pass here – it means the ball is beyond the “D” defender inside two seconds with space to work with. It didn’t work in this instance, but you could see the possibilities.

Draw in the two close defenders and then play out the back to exploit the number overlap.

We were very good at creating collisions on our terms, rather than England’s – that was true in February and it was true here.

That isn’t to say we weren’t capable of crashing up fringe ball – we scored three or four tries that way – but that was Ireland taking contact on our terms. We looked well coached, well drilled and dialled into what we’re good at.

Even then, England took a fair bit of beating. They held the lead on multiple occasions and Ireland’s discipline and fitness played a big part in eventually overhauling and putting the English away in the second and fourth quarters.

Ultimately, this was a game won by Ireland’s use of tempo and a rock-solid set piece. Those three elements – the scrum, lineout and maul – were probably the standout part for me and our front five will be a match for any unit in the competition on this game’s evidence.

This was a hugely encouraging performance based on fundamentals that should stand to us throughout the tournament with a bit of luck on the injury front.

Australia – and a surefire place in the knockouts – await.

The Wally Ratings: England (N)

The Wally Ratings explainer page is here.  

As per usual, 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 given the way the game went. 

Names	Rating
Josh Wycherley	★★★★
Dylan Tierney Martin	★★★★
Tom Clarkson	★★★★
Charlie Ryan	★★★★
Ryan Baird	★★★★
David McCann	★★★★
John Hodnett	★★★★
Azur Allison	N/A
Craig Casey	★★★★
Jake Flannery	★★★
Jonathan Wren	★★★★
Stewart Moore	★★★
Liam Turner	★★★★
Angus Kernohan	★★★
Iwan Hughes	★★★
John McKee	N/A
Michael Milne	N/A
Charlie Ward	N/A
Ciaran Booth	★★★
Ronan Watters	★★★
Niall Murray	N/A
Sean French	★★★
Ben Healy	★★★★

There’s much to cover in this game and I’ll be doing that in TRK Premium all week long with GIF and Video Articles.