There is joy in sport. Sometimes we can lose sight of that, especially when a team has been going through a difficult run, which I think could be said of Ireland over the last two years without being accused of hyperbole. We all want Ireland to do well – relative to our expectations, of course – and in the last 20 years, a two-win Six Nations is just not what we have come to expect. Even last year’s three-win Six Nations was considered something of a disappointment primarily off the back of two comprehensive defeats to England and France. Rightly or wrongly, in the last few years, we have come to judge ourselves against England and France.
When you combine that with no tests against the Southern Hemisphere sides outside of that quarter-final defeat to the All Blacks in the World Cup, there was a general feeling amongst fans, media and I guess the players and coaches too that Ireland haven’t won a game of significance since the All Blacks game in 2018.
Big wins against big opposition in big games create the kind of joy that sport is built on. When you don’t have them, it can suck the colour out of the game if you have expectations for more. That All Blacks game – and I suppose that stretch from 2016 to November 2018 – showed us what was possible but, in doing so, it raised our joy threshold and lowered our tolerance for mediocrity.
That made 2019 hurt all the more and left a particularly bitter taste in the mouth when the usual World Cup quarter-final exit arrived with brutal familiarity to, worst of all, the team who we had beaten almost a year earlier to raise our expectations in the first place.
When the change of head coach failed to produce the “new coach bounce” in the games we have come to judge ourselves on – France and England – sporting joy stepped even further away. Then we had the Autumn Nations Cup. It was a different lockdown but, ultimately, the same feeling of looming mediocrity.
Skip to 2021 and it’s more of the same thing. An underwhelming loss to Wales never quite fit the suit that the narrative around O’Mahony’s red card tried to tailor for it. The loss to France was tight on the scoreboard but not necessarily all that tight whistle to whistle. Things improved against Italy, sure, and the Scotland game showed glimpses of quality but there was no joy. Beating Italy is a regular chore at this stage and Ireland have beaten the Scots consistently for close to a decade so, if anything, the scratchy end to that game left more to be desired.
So we came to Saturday afternoon. We came to England.
The last four meetings with England prior to this weekend had ended with variations of the same theme. They just didn’t rate us offensively. Eddie Jones’ England were extremely comfortable kicking the ball to us, piecing us in up defence and then hurting us with brutal accuracy at the set-piece.
They seemed to start this game in the same vein but… something seemed a little off. The last set of kicks in this clip were probably the best – Ford’s last one was improved by a sloppy sealing off penalty under pressure – but the other kicks produced just weren’t of the standard that we have come to expect from England in this fixture.
Short, drifting box kicks, kicks out on the full and, most cruelly of all, none of the luck that all good kicks need. This up and under from George Ford was an absolute nightmare.
Murray lost this one in the clouds by a metre or so and he was lucky enough that Bundee Aki bailed him out and Ireland were able to exit.
England were still managing to move Ireland back, however, despite the general quality of their kicking attempts being well below their best. In the 13th minute, after England had been held up over the Irish line after a close-range maul, the game hinged on a scrum. If England got into structure off the launch, we’d be odds on to concede and go 10-0 down. A familiar feeling. Instead, Ireland turned it around.
The first hinge point came from English indiscipline at the scrum – an early shove from Vunipola on Furlong.
From there, Ireland began to stitch moments together; a great read off the English maul break by Earls to cut off the out ball and then by Robbie Henshaw to swallow up Ford. Aki and Sexton joined the party and England were turned over. From the resulting scrum, Henshaw made a massive break into the English half before some heavy phases and a perfect kick by Sexton that landed on Daly right outside the English 22, allowing that man Robbie Henshaw to smash him and earn a panicky penalty out of the English ruck defence.
Then the next turning point – Conor Murray earned a neck roll penalty out of Mako Vunipola on what had been a decent English attacking platform.
From the resulting lineout, Ireland hit a lineout move that changed everything about how this team perceived itself. Or at least so it seemed.
The concept is pretty simple on that lineout but it’s perfectly executed. Conan starts as a lifter on that scheme but runs out to the tail while Ireland threw up a dummy pod to bind England to a counter-launch.
If you look at England’s defensive layout on those lineouts, the tail gunner is usually Tom Curry. Curry is around 6’1″, being generous, and Jack Conan is 6’4″. The key would be if Conan could win that aerial battle with Curry and if Aki could exert enough gravity on the outside defenders to preserve the space for Earls.
When Earls got the ball and broke past Vunipolait was down to him to find the finish. Boy, did he ever. Earls absolutely roasted Johnny May in the backfield and not only was it the single most coherent lineout strike we had produced in a few years, but it also seemed to energize Ireland. Something we had worked on during the week had come off exactly as we’d schemed it! It sounds like a silly thing but that one clear success can supercharge the collective confidence of the group.
All of a sudden, Ireland were rolling.
Look at this sequence; keep an eye on Stockdale running a loop route behind an Irish forward line that was winning collisions. Even an average pass from Murray isn’t enough to stall the progress and when Ireland get set in the wide channel, we hit the 3-2 shape perfectly, with a swivel pass from Beirne and then an offload from Furlong to Stander.
Ireland were flowing through that 3-2 shape with confidence that we haven’t really seen so far this season. Look at Earls slotting in at first receiver as we progress across the field! Conan was utilised as a wide runner, almost in the #6 role that we had seen for Beirne and O’Mahony earlier in the tournament, and he made excellent ground. Earls showed up as a handler again before Sexton dropped a bomb on Daly in the backfield that Keenan absolutely dominated.
From there, Ireland had all the momentum. As we came back across the pitch, it was vital that Ireland actually executed the opportunities as they presented themselves. How many times have I highlighted guys like Ringrose taking sub-optimal decisions at key moments? He’s a good player but Aki seemed better suited to executing in these moments. This isn’t about numbers on backs – this is about making good decisions and executing. Aki’s pass to Conan was exactly what it needed to be.
England were so unbalanced that Cowan-Dickie, normally a solid defender, makes a bad fold around the ruck and Conan has the power to finish in the space left behind.
Ireland were winning turnovers, scrum penalties and kicking really smartly off #9 and #10. What England had so often done to Ireland, Ireland were now doing to England.
We were launching off the lineout through Aki with such power that it was forcing bad folds out of the English forwards as they transitioned into defensive structure off the set-piece. Aki’s carry was really good and Murray found Henderson on the reverse play with open grass in front of him.
Look at the momentum we play through with here – this is quality stuff, from Conan’s strong carry on the edge, to Beirne’s tip on to Henderson, to Sexton’s kick and Earls finish. It’s a shame it was crossed off for a knock-on during the Henderson/Healy involvement, but it was a great illustration of how well Ireland were launching off the lineout and then progressing up the field with that possession for big gains.
Both of our tries in this game came from the lineout and when you look at the tournament as a whole, we are the most reliant on the lineout for our tries as a raw percentage – 75%. The impact of Paul O’Connell has been palpable.
The biggest factor for me, though, is the tweak in our approach play. Against France, for example, we held onto the ball for 21.7 minutes. Against Wales, we had attacking possession for 27 minutes. Here? Just 14 minutes. Our tournament average for attacking minutes in possession is 20 minutes per game.
We had less of the ball than we usually have and looked all the better for it. A lot of that came down to our kicking game just being better than it has been for the last few rounds. Murray was back to his best in this facet of the game and he was joined by an excellent display of kicking from Sexton, both tactically and off the tee.
England would give up possession quite a bit here – they have the lowest non-Italian active possession time in the tournament – but the difference here was that we didn’t fall into old traps and kicked as well as we have in years.
There’s a danger that we could turn this victory into something more than what it was and, in doing so, whitewash what was quite an average Six Nations performance-wise up to this point. Did the enforced change in midfield have a more profound effect from a role division perspective than we imagined? Was Murray’s presence – his first since the Wales game – a key addition? Or, as Sexton was quick to point out post-match, was this building all the way along in plain sight?
I’ve spoken in these reviews about how the structure we’ve been using has been producing opportunities but that the players, for whatever reason, were not executing them fully. I think we’ve also seen that the standard of some of our strikes off the lineout have not been of the required standard too. The improvement Ireland had been talking about was incremental, and certainly hard to perceive at times, but the manner of this win cannot be diminished by the average work, on the whole, that came before it.
This was the statement win that Andy Farrell, his staff and his squad have needed for some time. This was the win that we, the people who support the game in this country, have needed too. Coaches run on good vibes and I don’t know what the vibes would have been like if, say, the scoreline had been reversed. That’s a different universe now. Andy Farrell’s Ireland are still a work in progress, for sure, but we have an impression now of what they can bring when everything clicks. Questions remain like, for example, Ireland’s midfield combination going forward, but this win buys Farrell some time and space to put more of his plans into place.
And he gave a little bit of joy to rugby in this country and that’s worth quite a bit right now.
Notable Players
This was a superb performance by the entire squad. I’m going to focus on the five-star guys for this section because there are a few.
Tadhg Furlong, when he’s fully fit, is one of the best players in the world and, for my money, the best tighthead prop playing the game. The other guys in this bracket are all top-class players, for sure, but they aren’t as complete as Furlong is.
Who can scrummage as well as him AND life with the power he does AND carry as he does AND rack up the ruck arrivals like he does AND pass as he can? No one. This game was more proof that Furlong makes Ireland better in intangible ways that go beyond the odd moments of magic he can produce with a step here or a carry there. He is a player that tips the balance of games at the highest level because he is everywhere, doing everything. This was an incredibly complete performance. ★★★★★
This was the kind of game that would make you wonder if Robbie Henshaw had a twin brother sneaking onto the pitch. This was as dominant as I’ve ever seen Henshaw, on both sides of the ball. In the early going when England were dominant, Henshaw made multiple top-class interventions on the ball, in defence, and in the chase under kicks that helped to turn momentum back Ireland’s way. The question is not who plays in Ireland’s midfield at this point, it’s who plays with Robbie Henshaw. Outstanding. ★★★★★
Conor Murray remains one of the most decorated players in Irish rugby while also being consistently one of the most underrated. There were a few questions beforehand about why he was brought straight back in for this game when it appeared that Gibson-Park had been playing so well. I think that Andy Farrell knew that Murray was the guy for this game and Murray delivered in spades for his coach. Some of his passing ruck to ruck was a bit ropey early in the game but as he grew into the contest, so did Ireland. His decision making and execution of the pass was superb on the whole and his kicking was a massive positive for Ireland all through the game. He’s a multi-cap test Lion for a reason and I’ll be stunned if he doesn’t feature for them again this season, should the tour go ahead. ★★★★★
When someone asks you who the man is, it’s you’re duty to tell them that it’s Keith Earls. Why? Games like today. He scored a try that only he and maybe three or four other wingers could score against a player as agile as Johnny May one-on-one, sure, but it wasn’t just that.
It wasn’t just this finish to the disallowed try of the weekend either.
It was the completeness of his game. Defending on the wing these days is like doing algebra on a rollercoaster. Everything’s happening at 100 kilometres an hour, the questions are always changing and even when you get the right answer you can still lose. Whenever they think they have all the answers on Keith Earls, he changes the questions. His backfield work was strong, his kick chase was accurate and his moments at first receiver were sharply taken.
Couple that with one of the best finishes you’ll see anywhere – look at the stagger step change of direction and the effortless ball transfer from one arm to the other away from the chasing arms of May – and you’ve got a five-star man. ★★★★★
A few years ago, someone said that Tadhg Beirne was a little too small to play in the second row at test level. Maybe he wasn’t heavy enough? I think that’s probably true. There are certainly locks that are heavier than him. But there aren’t many better than him, either. Beirne finished the tournament top of the charts for breakdown steals, which we know he’s capable of, but he also finished in the top five tournament-wide for offensive AND defensive breakdown arrivals while also being in the top ten for carries made. The only guy who features in all of those categories to that degree is Tadhg Beirne.
He is performing at a level in this tournament that very few players have seen, in my opinion, and it’s not just the numbers that back that up, it’s the evidence of my own two eyes. He was bordering on unplayable here with the kind of complete game on both sides of the ball that exemplifies what a modern forward could and should be. ★★★★★
CJ Stander means a lot to Irish Rugby. The reaction to him after the game, from both sets of players, show the respect that he has earned the hard way in this country. He earned it every day in training and every minute he spends on the field working hard at the breakdown on both sides of the ball and absolutely crushing collisions like this one.
I’d need an airlift out of the stadium after running into Vunipola, Curry and Genge at this speed. Stander not only wins this collision he walks away smiling because he’s a cyborg or something. We will not truly appreciate what this great player has brought to Irish rugby until next year when he is no longer here. This game showed his immense value once again as a player capable of winning heavy collisions against the most aggressive defence in the tournament with a smile on his face. When he cried after the game we all felt that because it was real and because we know that when he says it meant the world to him to wear that shirt, sing our anthems and represent our island as his home. It was all true.
We were all privileged to see a man such as CJ Stander pull on that green jersey and watch him earn it every single week for the country that he adopted and that adopted him back in return. Thank you, CJ. ★★★★★
The Wally Ratings: England (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 |
|---|---|
| Dave Kilcoyne | N/A |
| Rob Herring | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Furlong | ★★★★★ |
| Iain Henderson | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★★★ |
| CJ Stander | ★★★★★ |
| Josh Van Der Flier | ★★★★ |
| Jack Conan | ★★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★★★★ |
| Johnny Sexton | ★★★★ |
| Jacob Stockdale | ★★★ |
| Bundee Aki | ★★★★ |
| Robbie Henshaw | ★★★★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★★★★ |
| Hugo Keenan | ★★★★ |
| Ronan Kelleher | ★★★ |
| Cian Healy | ★★★★ |
| Andrew Porter | ★★★ |
| Ryan Baird | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★ |
| Jamison Gibson-Park | DNP |
| Billy Burns | N/A |
| Jordan Larmour | ★★★ |
