We’re back, baby…?
Or are we? Honestly – it’s hard to know and even the question feels a bit off to me. Last week’s rusty, listless display against England wasn’t a full display of where Ireland are ahead of the World Cup and this win over a mix and match Welsh side isn’t proof that we’re back to our Grand Slam 2018 peak swagger either. That isn’t to say that winning against Warren Gatland’s Wales in Cardiff is anything to be sniffed at, far from it, it’s just that… it’s pre-season.
The media pressure leading into this game could lead you to believe that this game was a lot more than what it actually was, importance wise. It would be a mistake to read too much into this win, just the same as reading too much into Ireland’s loss last week was, mainly because of the quality of the Welsh side. The minute Wales named their squad for this one, it was clear where their planning priorities were and it wasn’t this game, despite Gatland’s smug, amateur hour attempts at “mind games” during the week.
Make no mistake, this was mostly a mix and match Welsh selection, with guys shooting for squad places in Gatland’s list of 31. They played like it.
Ireland’s selection looked stronger on paper – especially in the front five – but we were going pretty deep into our depth chart too, as well as trying out some “in case of emergency” combos in the starting XV and on the bench. We didn’t play like it for 60 minutes and it goes some way to explain how we built a 17 point lead at one point before bench disruption let Wales back into the game.
Having watched the game back three times, there isn’t all that much I can show you from a “structure” POV. Ireland aren’t really showing much of anything with regards to how we’re looking to structure our phases outside of a “two stack” formation that we’re using as a slight variation on our three-man pod system.
You saw it a lot in this game and it’s a product of Ireland trying to generate more ball carrying options in that “hammer zone’ close to the ruck while also giving screen options to Carty. Here’s a look at it in action.
This particular example didn’t end all that well – a knock on from an average enough pass from O’Mahony to Ryan – but you can see how it would work.
The inside man has to make up some ground but gets a nice angle on the cleanout if you get any kind of gain line.
It’s an interesting little twist on what we’ve been doing, especially because of the options it gives to the #10 in the pocket. Have a look at this variation of it, and pay attention to how Beirne operates on the “C” defender.
It allowed Ireland to run an option offload play, if Beirne could create an angle in the Welsh defence – essentially using their line speed against them. When Beirne checks Navidi, look at the angle that it creates for Carty to attack and look for that pass in contact.
That triangular space behind the Welsh line speed is real offload territory. You’ve got Welsh defenders stopping to turn back and track advanced Irish runners and Aki/Farrell are on hard offload support lines, not ruck support lines.
It gives you options, is my point, but we didn’t really see all that much of them in this game. That said, our first try came from the back of a planned offload scheme.
A massive clean break from the ultra-impressive Dave Kilcoyne created a massive attacking opportunity for Ireland. The Welsh fringe defence had to reset in the aftermath of Kilcoyne’s break, and when the ball came to Carty, O’Mahony drew the attention of Navidi and Davies, leaving Carty to attack the isolated Elias.
Carty got his hands from the tackle and fed Conway, who had worked in off the wing and finished the opportunity extraordinarily well by feeding Stockdale.
It was a well-worked try, and about as good as we saw from Ireland in an attacking capacity. We, like Wales, weren’t really showing all that much and it’s instructive that Ireland’s winning margin was generated off the back of a penalty try and a spilt Welsh ball.
That isn’t to say that some of our work in the set-piece – scrum in particular – wasn’t interesting, and I’ll get to that during the week, but we weren’t showing anything more than we had to. Once again, we didn’t box kick, and that played us into trouble on occasion. Our defence was impressive throughout – the first half in particular – but it didn’t prevent a late Welsh rally from quickening the pulse in the last quarter. The nature of that collapse, in part due to the disruption caused by a raft of changes around the 50-minute mark, will be of some concern but the context of the fixture has to be applied.
Ultimately, the main meat of this fixture comes down to who took their opportunities and who didn’t.
Dave Kilcoyne’s first appearance of the pre-season produced probably the most impressive cameo from any Irish player to date. He scrummaged incredibly well against Tomos Francis, carried with real menace and battered Wales on the gain line.
I won’t pre-empt Schmidt’s thinking, but it was the kind of performance that made you take notice of the improvements that Kilcoyne has made to his game in the last 18 months. It was as good as I’ve ever seen him. Playing against a more full-strength Wales next week will be a bigger challenge but he was really good here.
James Ryan was one of the first names on Joe Schmidt’s banker list for Japan, and it’s foolish to pretend otherwise, but this performance was a reminder of the 23-year old’s dominant physicality.
He didn’t even do all that much – by his own standards – but what he did do was boss most of the contests he flew into. He’s a special player who seems to be getting better and better.
Andrew Conway, Niall Scannell, Jack Carty, and Will Addison had very visible contributions throughout and all made their case for Japan pretty clear. Iain Henderson is going to Japan regardless and he showed why with tough, nuts and bolts performance here.
Tadhg Beirne had a low key, but busy afternoon in defence primarily. He was filling the traditional “O’Mahony role” in defending the wider channels and his breakdown interventions were a constant threat that had to be managed by significant Welsh numbers. His pace in covering the wider Welsh breaks was surprising for a man of his size. Did he do enough to outstrip Ruddock? Time will tell.
After watching back the game a few times, I can’t help but feel that this was a missed opportunity for Chris Farrell to nail home his case as a fourth midfielder in the squad of 31. He ran a lot of unselfish decoy options, made a few nice passes but didn’t use his possessions as well as he would have liked on a few occasions. He’s fortunate, in a way, that Garry Ringrose’s form seems to have tailed off dramatically at the worst possible time. Yes, he came on in a relatively unfamiliar position here – on the wing – but lost a few one on one contests that I think Ringrose nails when he’s really on.
Jack Conan had a decent game here. Lots of hard work in defence, some really good rucking and I thought was unlucky not to get his hands on the ball in some decent positions on phase play. I didn’t think his breaking from the scrum was as good as it might have been and I can’t help but feel he’ll be disappointed with how his game went when he looks back at it. This was a big opportunity for him to state definitively – against lesser opposition than a full-strength Welsh pack admittedly – that he was the ball carrying threat that had to start against Scotland but I’m not sure he made a compelling case on that aspect. He was stopped on the gainline for much of the game and only entered positive metres in the last five minutes with a few scrappy carries in our half.
I think we’ll see him starting again next weekend with Stander at 6 (or vice versa) but this felt like an opportunity missed for Conan to make a definitive case.
Schmidt will be making his decision on the 31 in the next day or so. Have players on the bubble Beirne, Kleyn, Addison, Conway, Larmour, Luke McGrath, Kilcoyne, Farrell, Murphy, Carty, Byrne etc., showed enough over the past three games to make the plane? Some have. Has anyone done enough to upset Schmidt’s thinking on what his Category 1 selection is? I don’t think so. Barring injury, I think the Irish XV we know – and you know the names – is the squad that will take the field against Scotland barring injury.
A lot will ride on how Sexton, Henshaw and Earls come through next week but, truth be told, we’re in the end game now. Four years of preparation comes down to the next few weeks. Do we have a squad of 31 that can get beyond a quarter-final? We’ll see.
The Wally Ratings: Wales (A) Guinness Summer Series
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 | ★★★★★ |
| Niall Scannell | ★★★★ |
| John Ryan | ★★★ |
| Iain Henderson | ★★★★ |
| James Ryan | ★★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★ |
| Jack Conan | ★★★ |
| Kieran Marmion | ★★★ |
| Jack Carty | ★★★★ |
| Jacob Stockdale | ★★★ |
| Bundee Aki | ★★★ |
| Chris Farrell | ★★ |
| Andrew Conway | ★★★★ |
| Will Addison | ★★★★ |
| Rory Best | ★★★ |
| Andrew Porter | ★★★ |
| Tadhg Furlong | ★★★ |
| Devin Toner | ★★ |
| Jordi Murphy | ★★★ |
| Luke McGrath | ★★ |
| Garry Ringrose | ★★ |
| Dave Kearney | ★★★ |
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.
