Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

crisco10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118787243#Comment_118787243

It was sort of strange really, I think on most of the 6 scrums where they got the penalty the ball was available to be played but they didn't even want to try and do something with the free play. I think Reynal may not have helped, he got very whistle happy. In particular, the penalty that lead to 15 all. England looked to have a 3 on 2 down their right, with Irish cover arriving. But they would have gotten into our 22 and had front foot ball, why not try on the advantage?

AdamD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118786396#Comment_118786396

It was a great result but Ireland didn't play well for most of the game. I struggle to see how anyone could watch that match and think Ireland played well. Ireland conceded 15 penalties and 19 handling errors (seems iffy but this is according to 6N website)

pickarooney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118785065#Comment_118785065

I don't know, to be honest. There was a very similar one in the second half where (again) Itoje stopped the SH getting the ball out and a penalty was given. IIRC it was just before Steward's intercept. I'd have to watch again to see what the difference was in that situation. Maybe the SH didn't have the ball in his hands and thus the ruck was still on?

pickarooney

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118785684#Comment_118785684

'A steep learning curve' sounds like something which is really difficult to start out on (by analogy to a steep hill) but is effectively the opposite as you gain a lot of skill/knowledge in a short time. If the graph was represented with the axis illustrating what you have left to learn so that 0 on the X-axis is up at a 100 on the Y it would be a better visual representation.

Burkie1203

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118786692#Comment_118786692

WT Actual F

Burkie1203

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118787629#Comment_118787629

Itoje was off his feet IIRC and a ruck was formed

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118787387#Comment_118787387

I watched it back and came to that conclusion. Englands defence for large parts was excellent and their kicking game was quality too. But if you look at the game again you’ll see that, a 10 minute or so period in the second half aside, we dominated that game.

Take a look at those few forced passes like Furlongs offload to Aki, Beirnes offload to Henderson, Doris’ pass to Murray and Lowes offload to whoever was wide that time. Small, split second errors that cost us probably at least 2 or 3 tries. Yes they were errors, but there was a lot of good work in the build up to those errors that got us into genuine scoring positions. And that was happening for the majority of the game.

Then we had Doris’ try chalked off for a great bit of defensive play from a England at the ruck. That wasn’t an error on our part, that was really good work on Englands part. They had some big defensive moments like that too.

Theres no getting away from our errors, and on another day they may have cost us the game, but there’s also no getting away from the fact that we were putting ourselves in those positions too. Against Wales, England created no try scoring opportunities at all. Not one. We were creating opportunities and not finishing for a period in the game. That by definition means there were good and bad parts to what we were doing. And in the end, all the work that England had to do to defend against the tempo we were bringing told.

We left at least 2 or 3 tries out there on the day. England left nothing out there. They were living off scraps and we were not as clinical as we should have been. But just as in another day our errors could have cost us, on another day we could have won that 9-50 or similar. I don’t think England had any more than 15 points in them (and they were lucky to even get that). We definitely had more than 32 points in us and now need to focus on making sure we’re more clinical.

Jump_In_Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118787663#Comment_118787663

In general a learning curve shows the amount of learning over time, you generally learn the most new things at the beginning, and as time goes on you learn less new things each day as you get closer to mastering it.

In Ireland's case, they are pretty good right now, but it could take another year or more for them to improve ever so slightly to get closer to the end goal of being so comfortable with the new style that they will have no fear of switching between the pre-programmed style of the past and back to the new style as they won't lose that ability as it will be ingrained in them.

The poster was making the point that at the moment Ireland are trying not to revert to the old style because there's a danger it will erode some of the new style as it won't be "locked in" yet. Once it's "locked in" they can do what they want after that, which will make them an even better team.

arsebiscuits1

I think the point on the chances we didn't take is being overstated and is part and parcel of the "high risk high reward" game plan to borrow a cliche that I think oversimplifies things.

• Ireland spend a lot of time in possession (a total of 65 minutes so far this 6N - the highest of any team. Nearest is England on 61minutes while everyone else is below 60)
• We have kicked 28% of our possession too. The next closest team is Scotland and Wales at 36%.
• We have had the most attacking rucks of any team also at 423. Next closest team is Wales again at a distant 390.
• We have had to make the least amount of tackles of any team with 493 attempted. Next closest team is France at a significantly higher 557.
• We're the highest team in terms of runs and meters made too.
• We are also top of the table in handling errors with 64. Next highest being Scotland at 55

What this is all pointing to is Ireland are obviously trying to play a running possession based game. We've been very creative in how and where we attack and utilise the middle third of the pitch very well and effectively.

But I think the mindset of Ireland has changed and everyone has bought in. YES ideally we don't drop the ball after a 50/50 offload. But I genuinely think the whole squad is buying into the utter conviction that they WILL get the ball back and the next one WILL go to hand. So why not try it? The stats back it up. The tries don't get scored without attempting it. So lets have a go.

It's reminiscent of All Blacks and New Zealand rugby in general. The turnovers tend to be quite high from those teams. But while there are passes that don't go to hand, the ones that do result in a score.

What we're doing is working. We've scored 20 tries so far AFTER 4 ROUNDS! 6 more than next closest France (who have already played Italy) and 10 more than next closest again Scotland (who have also played Italy)

The last time we scored 20 tries in the 6 Nations was in 2018 the Grand Slam year. And the closest total we got after that going back to 2009 (as far as I bothered checking) was 15.

TL;DR: Irelands attacking game is better than naysayers getting annoyed at "missed chances" are making it out to be. This is the most successful attacking play Ireland have displayed in years. And a huge part of that is a willingness to make mistakes. Because they're creating a lot

EDIT: Credit to Statguru Xanthippe over on LF for the stats too. Unbelievably resourceful poster

Deusexmachina

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118786594#Comment_118786594

Mother of God....

Stanley 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118786692#Comment_118786692

I can remember Pa Whelan from Garryowen give Johnny Cantrell of UCD a flurry of punches around the side of a maul in a final Irish trial many years ago, it settled the no 2 spot for a few years

TRC10

Joe Molloy on OTB today, completely accidentally called Iain Henderson, "Iain PENderson"...

Which I thought was quite funny.

leakyboots

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118788877#Comment_118788877

Great post!

Interested Observer

I have listened to OTB coverage on this, and Joe Molloy likes to ask big long meandering questions that he also answers in the process of asking, but he's been putting it to everyone that we might be overplaying and our turnover stat is too high. I'm sure there are cases of making passes that weren't on but I'd much rather us have 17 turnovers and 4 tries than half the number of turnovers and no tries. We spent a lot of time under Schmidt, particularly in his latter days, playing exceptionally low risk rugby that just didn't work, we'd spend phase after phase running into brick walls. We've totally moved on from that and if we drop a few passes along the way then so be it.

theVersatile

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118792543#Comment_118792543

Yeah it's more about the ratio of chances created to turnovers conceded. If we give away twice as many turnovers, but create three times the chances, then no harm. I also think our turnover rate will decrease the more we upskill and become accustomed to the systems in place

Dubinusa

The problem with a high turnover ratio is, teams like SA and NZ will likely score. Plus, a team like SA will probably hold onto possession to, denying us opportunities.

phog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118792794#Comment_118792794

That's true but we don't play them in a meaningful game until the World Cup, we have time improve our offloads as we get more accustomed to our new game plan.

The important thing here is we're evolving and winning at the same time, there's not need for panic.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118792867#Comment_118792867

Yes, exactly. There were plenty of complaints about our rigid play style during Schmidt's tenure, we are moving beyond that now and it won't come without bumps in the road.

It's also worth saying that Ireland have in the past struggled to turn games around if teams get a few scores on us, since our game plan was always about playing controlled, low risk rugby, getting ahead and staying ahead. If you want to be able to turn a game around and come from behind you need to be able to play a more open and expansive game.

This will all stand to us. It's not that we need to turn into the harlem globetrotters of rugby, but we need to be able to play like this when the opportunity arises or circumstances demand it.

TRC10

I'm not sure if I'd reduce our error count to simply part and parcel of playing an expansive game. A lot of them were just really silly decisions. I'm all for us throwing 50/50s, for example Beirne's offload to Henderson or Doris' to Murray. They didn't come off but those are the offloads we absolutely should be throwing.

A lot of the balls we were giving were closer to 90/10 against. Like Ringrose in the first play, when there wasn't an Irish player there to offload to and he threw it straight to Marchant. That was just a really poor decision, the ball was always going to end up in an English hand. Early in the 2nd half, Lowe had the ball with a 2 man overlap outside him, but instead of fixing his man and giving the pass, he takes the contact but then attempts a speculative backhand offload around the back of the defender and lost the ball when we should have had a 15 metre gain. Then there was Furlongs, at a moment when England had been dominating and we finally had a chance to apply some pressure ourselves, on 2nd phase he gets smashed in contact and then tries to offload out of it when it was never really on. They aren't just turnovers that happen when playing an expansive game, they're just poor decisions.

As I said I'm all for throwing 50/50s, but that's not what we were doing on Saturday. A lot of the time we were just handing England access back into the game when a bit more composure would have put them to bed much earlier. High risk, low reward stuff.

I've seen it compared to NZ, but how often do you see NZ throwing stupid offloads with little realistic chance of it coming off?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118792867#Comment_118792867

Gamestyle has been a positive development as it's less predictable than before but in terms of personnel key positions what's the realistic likelihood of Sexton making it through a world cup campaign unscathed given his durability (or lack of basically at this stage and age as is well evidenced) and with the replacement 10 being one that realistically wouldn't even make the squad of any of the British nations (never mind France who have an embarrassment of riches at 10)?

Especially with the world cup intensity being a step up from 6 nations and the matches vs SA and Scotland being the last 2 group matches unfortunately so with a possible 1/4 final in short order after.

Dubinusa

The offloading game is good and should be tried. That said, we made a balls of several as trc pointed out. I think it's poor decision making and panic! The side were trying to force things .

TRC10

And by the way, I absolutely love the way we're playing. I'm enjoying watching Ireland now more than ever. The way we're fully utilising our skills by moving the ball and playing to space, slicing opening defences of the top teams, it a joy to watch an Irish team do that. When in years gone by, we might get a score after 20 phases of pick and jams. Lowe and Conan's tries were tries we just wouldn't score 4 years ago, we never sliced teams apart like that.

But that doesn't mean that whenever we do something stupid, it's just "ah sure that stuff will happen"

awec

The sending off caused us to lose the run of ourselves a bit, yes. We perhaps lost a bit of respect for the fixture and were trying to force things to kill the game off earlier.

But again I think we'll learn from that. We're trying to evolve from percentage rugby to high tempo, ball-in-play attacking rugby and at times on Saturday the pendulum swung a bit too far.

salmocab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118793598#Comment_118793598

Yeah to a degree we were affected against Italy by the sending off too, probably in a different way, everyone that’s played sport at any level knows that it’s very hard to stick to the plan when the game is over so early, the England game was far from over but it still affects decisions.

Jump_In_Jack

The RTE rugby podcast is up, going into the final 6N weekend featuring Donal Lenihan and Bernard Jackman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVc6HnkdXI

arsebiscuits1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118793083#Comment_118793083

I agree with this by and large that we were far from perfect in our decision making.

It's extremely encouraging to see that our decision making is more multifaceted than pass or deck though. I like that there is a clear buy in from the squad to back themselves.

Those 90/10 passes become 10/90 passes once we build up to it.... and it looks like the intention of the build up will come to a point in late 2023...

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118792741#Comment_118792741

This is the thing. We are making mistakes and poor choices sometimes now. That won’t always be the case though. Each game should he a learning curve. With time the accuracy will come and the choices will become better.

ersatz

At this stage in the last WC cycle we won the grand slam and were playing faultless rugby, it turned into a disaster within a year. This time around we hammer England at HQ looking very comfortable but still have lots of clear improvements to make. It's a very good place to be.

Dubinusa

The draw we have is not favorable! There's not much wiggle room. A qf v NZ or France. We will really need a flawless few matches. I think it's possible.

Farrell is doing everything to make us a more fluid team. Hopefully, there's no massive drop in form! I don't believe there will be. The coaching are getting a lot from the players. Moreso than I expected.

TRC10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118796780#Comment_118796780

I just want to see us actually turn up for once at a world cup and put in a performance and not embarrass ourselves like we have at the last 4. We'll be underdogs against NZ or France sure, but there's no reason why we shouldn't give them a tight game. I don't think we have to make a semi or it's a massive failure. As far as I'm concerned, turning up and giving a respectable account of ourselves would be an improvement on the last 4 world cups. If we play our best game and lose narrowly to France or NZ I won't be upset. But if it's the customary 1/4 final humiliation, I will be.