St. Patrick’s Day Massacre

Wales had already won their third Grand Slam in eight seasons when Ireland and England took to Twickenham but the intensity of battle was far from quenched. To say we were comprehensively beaten on the final day of this year’s RBS Six Nations is to be incredibly generous to us. The BBC commentators used the ugly word “mullered” to describe the home side’s sheer dominance in the scrum and that too was probably one of the kinder pieces of slang that could have been applied. The first half was a close, nervy affair with a few exciting breaks on either side but with all points coming from exchanged penalties and at half-time it would’ve been hard to see either side pulling away. But boy did England pull away. As we so often see in these games, confidence and momentum can make an average side perform magnificently. We had no reason to expect the type of performance that England brought and that was to our detriment. The physicality and commitment of every single man was unmatched by us. From the moment the second half started it all unravelled for us, passes wouldn’t stick, kicks were misplaced and we showed the lack of imagination and variety that England are usually known for. Rob Kearney has been fantastic for us this year. He re-discovered that dazzling form from 2009 and has been a contender for man of the match in every game but when he fumbled a bobbling ball under no pressure from chasers, I knew it was not our day.

The advantage in the scrummage was only marginal until an injury to Mike Ross saw Tom Court’s introduction. Now I am well aware that not a single one of our proud squad set out to put in poor performances. We sometimes can doubt their focus or their commitment, feeling that we, as the roaring passionate supporters, have more heart or love for the game, the jersey, or for our countries than they do. And that’s dead wrong. The very fact that these men have achieved the level that they have shows you that they are more determined than any of us to represent this country on the highest of stages and that should never be questioned by us as fans or by the media at large. What can be questioned however, is whether those men selected have the skills to get to (or indeed stay at) that level. And Tom Court does not. He has never given an adequate performance in a green jersey such as to justify his constant inclusion in the Irish squad. The only reason he keeps warming that bench is because the IRB’s test level rules still only allow for one prop forward on the bench and he applies himself equally to both loosehead and tighthead positions. Equally poorly in my opinion. The gulf in ability between Mike Ross and Tom Court is enormous. Surely picking a more capable but less flexible replacement prop would be of greater merit to us than this current situation. Phillipe Saint-Andre employed an fascinating tactic in this year’s championship, and while the French finished below us it was not for this reason. In a number of key positions he chose to select superior players on the bench so as to improve his team in the latter stages of matches which is a level of depth that we simply cannot call on. We still select our best fifteen and only make changes when we need to. Arguments can be made for both systems, sure, but what can’t be debated is that ours isn’t working for us at the moment. Les Kiss’ change in roles from coach of defense to backs & attack seemed like a crazy idea at the start of the championship but something had to be tried after Alan Gaffney’s departure. Gert Smal’s withdrawal due to eye surgery didn’t help either but Anthony Foley seems to have stepped in capably. Still though, this is a team of players and coaches that is creaking. We are bringing on Ronan O’Gara and moving Jonathan Sexton to first centre, Sean O’Brien is having absolutely no impact at seven, and Gordon D’Arcy has been declining drastically. Again, there is no doubting what he has contributed to Irish Rugby’s golden generation but he is playing very poorly at the moment and we can’t afford to be romantic about our selections. Donnacha O’Callaghan is another man who is fading fast and when Paul O’Connell returns to fitness, it should be Donnacha Ryan and he who make up our starting second row partnership. But again, O’Connell is coming towards the end of his career too, not that you’d know it such is the quality of his most recent performances for Munster and Ireland.

To address these selection headaches the IRFU have created the role of development manager of the Irish Exiles and appointed Mark Blair (a former Ulster and Ireland A lock) to it. Mike McCarthy, Dan Tuohy, Rob “Hendo” Henderson, Justin Fitzpatrick and of course Simon and Guy Easterby are some of the names who have represented Ireland after coming through the Exiles system so hopefully this new role will uncover some options for us. The official line seems to be that the union are concerned with the number of Irish who are being forced to emigrate given the difficult times we are currently facing and that they wish to ramp up their presence in Britain so as to remind young players in that situation of their International options but it’s also clear that depth is desperately needed at test level. We simply cannot bring Tom Court as our front-row back-up on a tour of New Zealand, nor D’Arcy at twelve or O’Leary at scrum-half. Tomas will have been gutted that he wasn’t brought to last year’s World Cup but he has all of the support, coaching and experience available to him to pick himself up from that but he hasn’t. Perhaps the lack of depth that I’m hammering on about comes into play here also. The French players probably don’t take it as hard when they’re dropped from the International setup because they are used to their coaches testing both evolution and revolution. It’s exceptional in France to be selected year in, year out. Vincent Clerc being just one of very few who has been a must-pick for the last three coaches of Les Bleus. Nevertheless, O’Leary needs to use that dejection as fuel to improve, if he let’s it consume him than he’s not mentally strong enough to earn his place back, simple as that.

I’ll remember this championship as one in which both game by game, and overall, we started well enough, stayed there or thereabouts and then unravelled in a heartbreaking and worrying fashion. The comfortable wins against wooden-spoon warriors Italy and Scotland will quickly be forgotten and so they should be. The headline on the Irish Rugby website reads “Pride in defeat for ever-improving Ireland”. I was wondering if they had lost their minds, but it’s referring to the women’s fixture. In fact, Alison Miller’s superb try in the abandoned fixture against Wales gets my pick of Irish try of the tournament.

Scotland sent homeward

It was tough at times, pretty at times, sometimes dazzling and sometimes dour. The latest clash of the celts provided a more entertaining encounter than we are used to, dogged as this fixture often is in final scores that are divisible by three. In fact we came out comfortable winners with a try count of four to one and had the majority of our work done by half time. It was the Scots who took the lead with two penalties back to back but we responded impressively with a scripted try off a lineout from captain Rory Best. Eoin Reddan scrambled over for an important try to stretch our lead before Richie Gray rampaged through him to cross in the corner. Andrew Trimble struck back before the break and both teams seemed to suffer from the pace of the first half as neither team scored until Fergus McFadden barged over late in the game to increase the spread and remind Declan Kidney of his attacking threat. Deccie’s dilemma at nine was made more difficult by Eoin Reddan and Tomás O’Leary but not in a good way. Reddan had no variety in his game, constantly reverting to box kicks, the vast majority of which were sent too deep, giving away possession. O’Leary made no great impact from the bench and with Conor Murray injured both men had (and wasted) golden opportunities to stake a claim as our stand-out scrum-half. The atmosphere in the Aviva was (maybe surprisingly) better than it has been since we prevented England from securing a grand slam last March. “The fields of Athenry” has been absent for too long and it was great to hear it ringing around the stadium again. Confidence should be high going into next weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day showdown in Twickenham. The flower of Scotland has been trampled, the red rose is next.

Bleu in the face

Ireland and France played out a first Six Nations draw for either country in a nerve-shredding clash amid the Parisien rain. It was the snow that interfered three weeks ago and many wondered which (if either) team would benefit from the extended lay off. It was Ireland who started the brighter, mirroring the performance against Australia in last year’s World Cup where ferocity in the tackle and acceleration off the line bullied the Wallabies into submission, and it worked again. France hadn’t done their homework and Tommy Bowe scored two scintillating tries in the opening half, the first of which an intercept try that was as deliciously read as it was executed and the second came from a move the French would have been proud of, bravely battling out of our own 22, involving the whole back line, a chip and chase all topped off by a comfortable, stylish finish. We led by eleven points at half-time. Our average points differential at half time against France in Paris is nineteen points behind. So we were thirty points better off at the break than we usually are and what did we do? We undid it all. We challenged no rucks, our speed of tackle off the line was pedestrian and we invited France back into things. We left every single positive aspect of our first half performance in the dressing room with the possible exception of Rob Kearney’s dazzling display whose contribution was up there with the best we’ve ever seen from him. The one garryowen that drifted slightly too deep led to France scoring their only try through Wesley Fofana although Keith Earls was more at fault as his panicky attempted fly-hack of a bobbling ball should have been hopped on to secure possession and calm the storm. The conditions didn’t help but France weren’t knocking on and we were. We also crept offside more and more as the clock wore on, and any coach at any level will tell you that that’s a tell-tale sign of a team with no belief in their defensive systems. In fact by the end of it all the penalty count was 12-4 in France’s favour, a stat which Declan Kidney described as disgusting. Now while that’s a much more honest and scathing word than we’re used to hearing from Deccie, it was followed up by the old familiar shpeel about how the penalties are something we’ll have to improve on for next time. Our penalty count has been too high for too long and it costs us games, plain and simple. Kidney and co. are going to put their jobs under increasing pressure if they don’t address problems that have dogged us for years. It boils down to this. Sure – France are World Cup finalists, we were playing on their turf and few gave us a chance in the lead-up and rightly so. But we dominated them in the first half and fell asleep for the second and that’s completely unacceptable for the amount of experience on that team. If the patterns of play were reversed we could pull some comfort from a poor start being addressed and improved upon but it’s too late in the day for us to be consoled by a gutsy effort. We got it all right, put ourselves in the perfect position to win but we threw it away and that’s why this should, and does, feel like a loss.

A bit more like it

In the end it was as easy as it’s ever been as Ireland outscored Italy in the Aviva stadium by five tries to one but with eleven penalties conceded there will be plenty to work on before we return to Paris next Sunday. It was a stuttering start again from Ireland although Italy’s lack of clinical finishing saved our blushes. They’re homework was plain to see as they targeted both Conor Murray and the short side wings right from the off, as both had been exposed rather embarrassingly by Wales. In fact the scrum-half’s overall play was so poor that if it had been England he was playing for, he wouldn’t start the following week and if it were France, he wouldn’t have started the second half. The two most important aspects of number nine play are distribution and decision and on both counts he simply could not cope. Coupled with a general lack of energy, his delay over ruck ball brought calls from the crowd at every breakdown and his indecision over which direction to supply to caused him to move in one direction, change his mind and double back on several occasions. Putting yourself under unnecessary pressure is a cardinal sin in modern test rugby and although he addressed the speed issue at half-time, Eoin Reddan was brought on nonetheless. His zip was instrumental in the vast improvement in Irish play in the second half and as such he must surely start next week ahead of Murray. Donnacha Ryan was another man who shone upon his introduction. Hunger is proving to be quite some tonic amongst the fringe players at the moment but certainly he is winning the battle of the Donnachas and Kidney’s faith in Mr. O’Callaghan is under enormous pressure. Tommy Bowe and Andrew Trimble put in very solid performances throughout with both men providing both tries and tackles and Rob Kearney continued his sizzling form. In fact he was a stand-out nominee for man of the match but Johnny Sexton’s boot was deemed to have contributed more significantly. Nevertheless the back three should benefit (possibly more than any other group) from the confidence that will have been gained from what was eventually a very comfortable victory.

Stade still

For only the second time in the last sixty years, a Six Nations match has been postponed. Although a massive call it surely would have been, this decision should have been made at the start of the week as the temperatures in the Stade de France (pictured above having its covers removed 90 mins prior to kick-off) tonight are actually warmer than estimates predicted. Instead the capacity crowd had taken their seats, watched both teams go through their warm-ups and were waiting for them to re-emerge at 9pm local time when the announcement was made. Obviously player safety is of paramount importance in these circumstances but it has unfolded in a desperately unprofessional manner, particularly when you consider that England beat Italy earlier today on this Stadio Olimpico pitch.

Allez Les Bleugh

Everytime Ireland travel to Paris to take on the boys in bleu the build up is always full of if’s. If the right France turn up, if Ireland can start strongly, if we can block out the past etc. This time around those same constants dominate our thoughts as we try to imagine how Ireland can get their RBS Six Nations challenge back on track, but they’re joined by a few new ones – If we had Drico and more appropriately if Keith Earls comes into the team flying or if he suffers from being one game behind everyone else. Another fascinating corridor of speculation is this – If this match tomorrow night were the first game of the championship and both teams were named as they are would we win? I think we would. As I hinted in my frustration after last week’s game against Wales, Ireland are one of the most psychologically susceptible teams in World Rugby. We have a terrific record against England because of the historical and political significance involved in facing down our former occupiers but if we don’t have “previous” with a country we just cant seem to muster up the same performances. For this reason I think that one win in Paris in the last 40 years and our inability to exact badly needed revenge on Wales in Dublin last week will combine to dampen our chances.

Dimitri Yachvili has failed to recover from a back injury meaning that Morgan Parra starts at nine for the home side with Julien Dupuy promoted to the bench. In my opinion Parra is the more exciting, dynamic and unpredictable option at scrum-half so if anything this is an enforced change that should strengthen the French but Conor Murray will have been happy on the whole with his debut performance in the competition and should be wide awake after something of a baptism of fire marking Mike Phillips last week. The key area (as ever) will be at the breakdown where we must see a complete transformation if we’re to give ourselves a platform to build from. Philippe Saint-Andre has said that his selection of Imanol Harinordoquy at openside flanker this week is primarily to strengthen the lineout which was an area of concern for the French against Italy last week and something of a strength of ours recently and this change will certainly improve the contest from touch but with the Biarritz man more at home at number eight he may be a target of ours early on as we look to draw him in to contact in support of his fellow back rowers with the aim of creating some space for ours. Many people have said that Sean O’Brien is constantly being played out of position at openside so perhaps the French are hoping that Harinordoquy’s experience will prevail in that particular duel. The breakdown will be where we hope to stem the flow but inevitably they will spread things wide and given that all four French tries last weekend were scored by their three-quarter line, width will be key. Tommy Bowe will need a massive improvement on last week’s nervy display whereas Andrew Trimble should deliver more of the same. Gordon D’Arcy was humiliated in this fixture last year by Aurelien Rougerie on his way to the try line so he should be looking to make amends but it won’t be easy as Rougerie and winger Julien Malzieu put in sizzling performances last week. There’s no doubt that we have the ability and while the BOD factor is a big loss, by no means do I think that this is the strongest XV de France that P.S.A. could field. Word has emerged this evening that Paddy Wallace has been called out to Paris to provide standby cover after Jonny Sexton complained of tweaks in his thigh muscle after kicking practice today. Situations like these can be the making and breaking of these close encounters. The freezing conditions should be a nice equaliser and while the game looks unlikely to be postponed the speed of play should be naturally reduced which would suit us tremendously. Home advantage could edge it but we’re due a break.

Red hot Wales slash and burn

Ireland have lost on the opening weekend of the Six Nations for the first time in eight years and as thrilling an encounter as it was, once again we were the ones left licking our wounds as the men from the valleys increased their recent dominance over us. It was the Welsh who started the brighter as their forwards unlocked the door to our defense, Mike Phillips’ predictably unpredictable play kicked it wide open and the backs tore it off it’s hinges. It took us around a half an hour to adjust to the pace of the game and it was obvious that the men in red had the greater hunger right from the off. Not to take away from an excellent Welsh performance in the slightest but each of those factors are difficulties we have faced in the past and as such, should have been ready for.

In 2007 Wales provided our opposition on the first weekend and afterwards Ronan O’Gara commented that he felt it took the whole team about 20 minutes to settle into the pace of International rugby. By my calculations that means that we’re actually getting worse with each season in terms of sharpness out of the traps, but putting that aside for a minute – this is an issue that should have been addressed at the now famous pre-Christmas camp in Enfield, back in ’08. We nearly lost our opening fixture last year to an Italian side that, to their credit, went on to beat France but this trend simply cannot go on if Declan Kidney is serious about keeping his job. I firmly believe that he will not be our head coach for the next World Cup unless he wins an RBS Six Nations between now and then. Summer 2013 will see a Lions tour bound for Australia and surely his mid-term goal is to be head coach of that traveling party, which again is a job he is unlikely to qualify for without a championship win this year or next.

We have known for months that we would have to put together a second choice centre partnership in Brian O’Driscoll’s absence, and with Keith Earls’ withdrawal from the team earlier this week for family reasons, we had to field our third choice pairing in the middle of the park. This marked this area as a prime target for Wales and with the return from injury of Jamie Roberts, it’s another unforgivable sin that we failed to cope with this channel adequately. For our part we warmed into the game impressively before the end of the first half, our tries were well taken, cleverly worked and patiently executed but the determination, control and persistence that we showed once Bradley Davies was sin binned for a tip tackle on Donnacha Ryan was simply a glimmer in the river. Sure, we went on to score a try, (which Tommy Bowe had better keep in perspective as otherwise his performance was disgraceful) but another familiar flaw reared it’s ugly head. We can go and do it when we have to. We were behind and we saw our opportunity with a man up and we were rampant in our execution of that advantage. But with the wealth of experience throughout that team, that’s simply not good enough any more. The scoreboard should be irrelevant. If we can do it when we’re behind, do it all the time, block out the scoreboard the way Jonny Sexton had to block out the unruly Welsh cat-calls and let’s convince ourselves that we’re always behind if that’s what gets the best out of us. Instead we’re resorting to reactionary rugby. Our complete lack of contest at the breakdown today was the most glaring indication that Wales’ dominance there and variety elsewhere terrified us and as a result we relied on them to gift us possession. An Irish team frightened of challenging Wales. In Dublin. And next week we go to Paris. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

A lot to cover

Well a lot has happened in Irish Rugby since my last post which followed the conclusion of last year’s World Cup. The IRFU recently announced that Munster, Leinster and Ulster will have to abide by a strict overseas players limit of one foreign player across all three provinces per position. This means that if Munster were to keep Doug Howlett in Limerick, neither Ulster nor Leinster could field a foreign player to play on the right wing. This new policy is being introduced to encourage the provinces to field as many Irish-qualified players as possible with a view to improving our standing at test level.

At provincial level Munster have shown us that Ronan O’Gara is just as important part of their plan this season as the irrepressible Simon Zebo. Indeed the frighteningly unsettled nature of their performances last year had many of us worrying that perhaps ROG, POC et al had no more to give to the game but this year’s transformation shows there’s life (and indeed, bite) in these old dogs yet. The exquisite balance between youthful exuberance and wily experience that has made them so dominant in their march to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals this season is reminiscent of the unbeatable Ireland of 2009. Leinster for their part will be happy enough that Munster’s Indian summer has taken much of the focus off them of late, as they continue their bid to become only the second team to win back to back european honours, the only team who have managed it being Leicester who were utterly dismantled by Ulster recently and so the three main contributors of players to the Irish team for this weekend’s RBS Six Nations have sent their players into the competition full of confidence built on recent impressive successes.

The fourth province, while still lagging behind in the IRFU’s priorities are continuing to defy the odds as they played at the highest level this season for the first time in their history. They’re style of play suggests that they are determined to carve out their own place in Irish Rugby whether the governing body support them or not. Indeed, “Front Up, Rise Up” is Connacht’s motto this season and it smacks of revolutionary undertones that seem to be seeping through the province, no less so than on the final weekend of pool matches where they shut the door on Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins in a packed Sportsground in Galway, and in the process secured their landmark first victory in the Heineken Cup.

So Irish Rugby is flying high so far this season, no doubt about it. And we need to be, because the path to the final of last year’s World Cup, which consisted solely of northern hemisphere teams once we left the pool stages, provided us with our greatest opportunity ever to (a) get to a World Cup final and (b) beat New Zealand. Many would say that only the first of those was realistically achievable but even so, I’d have been more than happy with that. Instead I was genuinely heartbroken with the lacklustre performance we put in against Wales in the quarter-final and that was only magnified by the poor standard of play that unfolded once we had exited the competition. All of the nearlies, all of the could-have-beens. And it all goes in the pot. No matter how many quotes we have read this week from the players who insist that the previous two encounters between Ireland and Wales (Mike Phillips’ shockingly illegal try in last year’s RBS Six Nations and then just how easily we rolled over for them in the New Zealand) we simply cannot believe them. At test level rugby in the modern game, it’s all a part of it. You dump the niggles, the mistakes, your trust your systems to right the wrongs of the past but any fuel, anything that can be used to motivate, to sharpen the mind goes in the bag along with every other bit of kit. Slay the Dragon, lads.

My team of Rugby World Cup 2011

A week on from the final I’d like to offer my first choice XV from this year’s Rugby World Cup. These are the players I felt best excelled in their individual positions taking into account the number of matches they had an important impact in and the various opposite numbers they had the upper hand over.

 

Loosehead Prop: Number 1

Cian Healy (IRE)

Hooker: Number 2

William Servat (FRA)

Tighthead Prop: Number 3

Adam Jones (WAL)

Lock: Number 4

Brad Thorn (NZ)

Lock: Number 5

Patricio Albacete (ARG)

Blindside Flanker: Number 6

Thierry Dusautoir (FRA)

Openside Flanker: Number 7

Sam Warburton (WAL)

Number 8

Imanol Harinordoquy (FRA)

Scrum-half: Number 9

Piri Weepu (NZ)

Fly-half: Number 10

Rhys Priestland (WAL)

Left Wing: Number 11

Digby Ioane (AUS)

Inside Centre: Number 12

Jamie Roberts (WAL)

Outside Centre: Number 13

Manu Tuilagi (ENG)

Right Wing: Number 14

Cory Jane (NZ)

Fullback: Number 15

Israel Dagg (NZ)

Rugby World Cup 2011: All wrapped up by the All Blacks

It took 24 years for the Rugby World Cup to return to New Zealand, where it was first staged, and the result was the same. In both cases the All Blacks faced France in the final in Eden Park but it was made rather more difficult for them this time around as they scrambled to a one point victory over a French side who had laboured through the tournament and showed no signs that they may have been harbouring the capabilities to cause the greatest upset imaginable. Les Bleus are one of the few sides in International rugby who routinely beat the All Blacks and they always tend to have one really big performance in them in these competitions and so the locals were subdued in their expectations. Nervously hopeful is not a familiar feeling amongst the natives who tend to favour feverish bullish confidence but on this time quiet prayer replaced premature celebration. Aside from the far superior performance that was to come from Marc Lievremont’s team, the All Blacks had also been reduced to starting their third-choice flyhalf Aaron Cruden who hyperextended his knee and had to be replaced by their fourth-choice kicker Stephen Donald who was on his way to join Bath in the Aviva premiership and had to delay his departure when injuries struck Dan Carter and Colin Slade. Just to make things all the more dramatic, their captain Richie McCaw had a screw inserted into the metatarsal in his right foot earlier this year which became infected during the pool stages and from what we understand the decision was made between Graham Henry and McCaw to keep patching him up as best as they could because in the light of losing the perfection associated with Dan Carter’s game, they couldn’t concede their captain. The pain he must have gone through in the semi-final and final can only be imagined but it epitomises the drive of this All Blacks team. They really and truly felt as though each one of them had been carrying the dreams of every Kiwi and the drive of every man who has ever pulled on a black jersey for the past 24 years, and it showed. They didn’t play the best rugby in the final but throughout the tournament they were head and shoulders above all else. And let’s face it, they could have been playing against a team of thirty and they still would have found a way to win that final. With all of the history, emotion and importance of this competition, to these people in this country, they were always going to bring it home. Congratulations All Blacks, we only wish it had been Ireland who had the honour of providing the opposition.