Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Buer

Ireland absolutely did suffer from the pressure and it told. I think our opening 20 minutes were sloppy and then there were specific examples later in the game where it reared its head again. They looked rattled early on and it took them a while to get going.

What I'd highlight though is that Ireland aren't the only team that suffer from this. It's absolutely natural for this to be the case especially when there's such an intense focus placed on that specific game by ourselves and our media. NZ didn't come into the game with the same baggage or pressure and were able to cope better with the occasion.

But look at the final when NZ did have that level of scrutiny and pressure. They massively struggled and did so to a worse extent than we did, to my mind. Their captain made a really rash tackle that arguably cost them the RWC. They were totally rattled in that opening 20 minutes. Richie Mo'unga, the best 10 in the world over the last year, missed a straightforward touch. His opening kick off of the game was weirdly tame. Not high, not long, just chipped down the middle towards their 22 and Willemse was able to clear it with no pressure back into the NZ half; Mo'unga was terrified of making an error on it. He spilled a simple pass into his chest later in the game with an overlap on the cards. Beauden Barrett put in a brutal clearance from his own 22, missing touch by about 10-15m which led to a run back and three points for SA. NZ don't make these errors normally. Mentally, that game had the same pressure placed on NZ that the QF had on us.

And SA, who are clearly the best team at coping with pressure, are clearly not immune either. Pollard is the epitome of calm under pressure yet was about 3 inches from missing a tap over penalty in front of the posts in the opening minutes which clipped the inside of the post. His second shot was even closer, from about 12m out and snuck inside the post by about 12 inches. Then their line out had a significant collapse in the second half as they generally started to retreat into themselves. If Kwagga Smith hadn't been on the field for those final 25 minutes, they lose to 14 men.

The players are all human. Pressure gets to them all in different ways. Unfortunately for us, the QF is such a mental monster for us, that's where it pinched us.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121309846#Comment_121309846

To be Devil's advocate, and instead of saying truisms like dont make 'basic mistakes' whatever basic is supposed to mean in this context, an entirely subjective term...

What would you, joe soap on the street, say to Sexton to do differently.

Should he have practiced a bit more?

Dont have a brain freeze Johnny?

What does he do different so that kick goes over.

Repeating again, that you are joe soap on the street, and he is Johnny Sexton.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121309963#Comment_121309963

This is just really silly now. Nobody on here is a professional rugby player, if you're going down the route of suggesting you have to be qualified to have an opinion then I think you're lost. If you're after a bunch of clapping seals, mindlessly avoiding any discussion of what mistakes were or were not made, then again, I think you're lost.

He is Johnny Sexton, for a long time the best 10 in the world. He should not have missed that kick. Missing that kick was terrible. To suggest it was anything other than terrible requires some serious mental gymnastics.

As I said before, if Crowley had missed that kick there would have been a completely different narrative on here, but I think it's just the case that some are very uncomfortable calling it for what it is because it was his last game etc etc etc.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310098#Comment_121310098

I understand what you're saying and I agree with a lot of it. The missed kick was poor. But let's not forget the feeble defense on the 1st phase try the kiwis scored off a line out. That was uncharacteristic. Nor should we forget the inability of our leaders to get the gap in the line outs policed. Massive failures by us.

We were poor for the opening 20 minutes. It's not all on J10. Many fingers to point at several people!

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310160#Comment_121310160

Absolutely it's not all on Sexton, nor is it all on Doris, or Kelleher, nor is it all on Murray or whoever else made uncharacteristic costly mistakes.

It's on Ireland as a team. We were somewhat off the boil and it cost us.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310218#Comment_121310218

True. I reckon we had a poor performance.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310098#Comment_121310098

Thats a strawman.

My question is - what does he do differently?

If its one thing that all coaches are taught from the very first day - its 'dont state the obvious' because actually we already know it, he knows it so whats the point in saying it. Yeah sure its terrible.

What does he do different, so that next time, in the same situation, he kicks it.

Because if you dont know the answer - then we have a situation where you saying on the one hand - this is a really really basic mistake and on the other hand, actually I dont know how to fix it.

Which is a flat contradiction; those two statements cant be right.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310378#Comment_121310378

My question is - what does he do differently?

Not miss. I would have thought this obvious.

I am sure Johnny Sexton himself knows exactly what he did wrong, only he can answer why he missed.

I don't know why you think those two statements are contradictory either. Not knowing why he missed meaning I can't say it was a bad miss is a really bizarre take on this.

dublin49

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121307034#Comment_121307034

my point is that my colleague had opinions on performance that he could match to the result whether good or bad.Had luck allowed Kelleher change the result none of the other 14 players would have played better or worse.We would then be lauding all these same performances ,finding a way to win,collective mentality etc etc,in a game this close there is no real reason for win or lose other than its not your day.

Tombo2001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310514#Comment_121310514

Thats a non answer.

More stating the obvious - can you try to score it next time? I'm sure that would help.

The contradiction is

You cant say on the one hand it that it was a really really basic mistake, if on the other hand you dont know how to fix it. The latter says you dont understand it, which you would be able to do if it was actually so basic. Sorry I have to spell that out.....

I'd view it differently.

Thats a kick that Sexton scores, in normal circumstances maybe 9 times out of 10. Maybe 19 times out of 20.

However it wasnt normal circumstances, far from it, which reduces that probability to 7 or 8 out of 10. Which means it happens. And it did.

ersatz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310577#Comment_121310577

Mystical thinking. SA don’t have 4 world cups because of luck, and the reason we haven’t progressed beyond the 1/4 isn’t luck.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310615#Comment_121310615

They absolutely got a load of luck this WC. Multiple penalty calls that could've gone against them, and lost them games didn't. Good teams get good calls, but there were undeniably calls that on another day get punished and they lose.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310514#Comment_121310514

Ah, come on now. No goal kicker is 100%. They're always going to miss some kicks. It's unfortunate that it was a kick that would have had us within a point at the end, but **** happens.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310603#Comment_121310603

You cant say on the one hand it that it was a really really basic mistake, if on the other hand you dont know how to fix it. The latter says you dont understand it, which you would be able to do if it was actually so basic. Sorry I have to spell that out.....

This is nonsense. Only Johnny Sexton knows why he missed that kick, not you, not I.

This doesn't change the fact that it was an easy, straightforward kick. You, I, the guy up the street watching a rugby game for the first time in their life, anyone with eyes in their head can identify it was a straight-forward kick for someone of Sexton's ability, none of us need to be professional kicking coaches to comprehend that.

Thats a kick that Sexton scores, in normal circumstances maybe 9 times out of 10. Maybe 19 times out of 20.

However it wasnt normal circumstances, far from it, which reduces that probability to 7 or 8 out of 10. Which means it happens. And it did.

You are saying that Sexton was affected by the occasion and lost his composure. Which is to say, it had absolutely nothing to do with luck, or "fine margins", or NZ being unbelievably good, or some other mysterious external force deciding that we couldn't score that penalty.

I think we're finally getting somewhere.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310995#Comment_121310995

I don't expect him to be 100%, this is straw manning.

I don't expect a 100% error-free performance.

But it was an easy kick and he missed it. All kickers are going to fluff difficult kicks, the greater the difficulty, the greater the chance of missing. But you absolutely have to get the straightforward ones to compensate for it, you cannot be letting teams off the hook like that.

We made silly mistakes that we would not otherwise make. Doris dropped the ball completely uncontested which was as huge momentum shift. Murray gave away a braindead penalty. This was not typical of Ireland the past 18 months.

ersatz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121310799#Comment_121310799

I’m sure we could through tape and find Ireland benefiting from just as many lucky calls. If people want to believe that SA and NZ have 7 WCs between them and it’s because of luck rather than something else they produce, well, more power to you. Maybe we need a Shaman rather than a S&C coach in that case.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311043#Comment_121311043

I'm saying SA specifically benefited from some very fortunate calls this tournament. Winners make their own luck, but Etzebeth would likely have been YC'd for a penalty try by any other ref for example, and they lose the game.

ersatz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311102#Comment_121311102

This is the risk of extrapolating from the specific, refs miss many incidents in a game that are/look decisive after the fact. Ireland made more mistakes than NZ, end of story. The question to ask is why and how to avoid such mistakes in future. NZ made NO handling errors in the match, that is not magic, it’s discipline, skill and composure. If we made no mistakes in that game we’d have gone to a semi final and then who knows.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311126#Comment_121311126

Fair comment for sure, our execution was definitely lacking in the match. JGP had one of his poorest games unfortunately

techdiver

I have no evidence for this as it's just a gut feeling, but I think that despite most of the squad still being available and the talent coming through, I believe we are going to struggle for the next year or so. I think this failure (along with the core group of Leinster players who have continually failed to get over the line in Europe since 2018) is going to cause some mental scaring. I just see how they pick themselves up and go again. Add to this the coaching changes at Leinster (with a guy who couldn't be any more different in approach to his predecessor), I believe Leinster will struggle too this year.

I think this years 6 nations will be 2 away losses and maybe 3 home wins. I don't see us winning the upcoming 6 nations never mind getting a grand slam.

After the 2015 WC (in which we were all talking about the best depth we'd ever had) we showed that we had very little actual depth that year. 2019 is not worth going into as the writing was on the wall long before that tournament, but this year we really thought we had squad depth. Did we really? Unfortunately unless you have proper depth across all positions you are not going to win a world cup. Front row had been an issue for a while now. We have gotten by just about but we always seems to struggle there. Furlong is not close to being the player he was and Porter was forced to play far too many minutes. It is clear Farrell did not trust our back up 10's as has been said by many Sexton could hardly walk for the last 15 minutes and was left one the pitch. I believe the loss of Cian Healy was the difference in us wining a world cup. You might think that is an exaggeration but we had to flog Porter so much because we had no other option even when he was getting destroyed in the scrum against New Zealand. The fact that the loss of one player had much a seismic effect on our chances speaks volumes. I also think it was foolhardy to not replace some of our injured players with Healy for the quarter final. You can't keep someone in the squad in the hope he might be ok for a semi when the quarter final was such an important game. Henshaw had picked up the same niggle twice. Earls was a 36 year old winger who probably was going to play no further part in the tournament anyway as JOB had come back into fitness. James Ryan couldn't even hold his hand up after the Scotland game so I have my doubts that he could have even featured 6 days after the quarter final anyway.

I really thought this year was finally the year we would do something. I travelled over to Paris for the South Africa group game and thought so even more then. The loss to New Zealand hit me as hard as anything I've ever experienced. So much so I avoided looking or reading anything rugby related for a week after and am still avoiding any highlights of the game etc or talk about it.

Now what is the solution? Build more depth obviously. But that is not going to happen in Ireland. Look at South Africa in this year Rugby Championship. They literally split their squad in half and played completely different teams week on week in proper matches. Fast forward 2 months and they lean on that squad depth to win the world cup? Coincidence?

The argument has been done to death, but the 6 nations keeps the lights on. If we sacrificed the 6 nations every year for the change of making a world cup semi or final the IRFU would go broke. We just don't do squad rotation in the 6 nations or even November tests against the big teams because they are all "must win" games.

I just don't think the IRFU structures allow for a coach to target a World Cup. That's fine, but I think we just need to accept that and move on. No number of talented U20's are gong to make a blind bit of difference when the only action they are going to get at club level over the next few years is during the international windows, never mind breaking into the Ireland squad and even getting some proper game time (no playing against a minnow in November is not giving them experience, those game have less intensity than a decent URC game).

Maybe I'm being overly negative about the future but we seen this before with many teams at different sports and grades.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311441#Comment_121311441

SA have over 400k registered players, Ireland has something like 90-120k based on different websites. That across the entire island and less than 5% of the population. We should be aiming to increase that to at least 10% over the next few years.

In terms of failure, I think France will feel it more, they have spent 6 years building towards a home World Cup and lost out in the qtr finals. They retired nearly an entire squad of players to build towards this tournament, the population of France have spent the last 4 years thinking this was the one they would win, if they are ever goign to win a WC this was it.

Im not sure anyone in 2015 felt we had the best squad or depth, we had a great team and a great coach but not anything in term of talent that we had in 2011. The layout of the draw meant we thought a Argie qtr would be a game to win, especially in Cardiff, problem was half the team was injured.

In terms of U20, they got to a WC final, not sure why anyone would think they will only get time during internationals? especially when the games during internationals are more or less gone. Ireland has an incredible record compared to the likes of Scotland/Wales/Engladn etc at getting U20 players into senior squad. So I would expect that to continue.

Disappointed, yes I am. Negative towards the future? no chacne.

But we do need to get some of those big lads who play GAA into rugby somehow

pickarooney

Why do we need to keep playing the summer series? Sending first choice players to the southern hemisphere - does little for squad development, no gate receipts, giving future world cup opposition more insight into how we play and it's flipping boring playing them all the time

Tier 2 nations are crying out for games and playing them lets us develop our squad better

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311562#Comment_121311562

Tours are pure calendar filler. When they play tier 1 teams they will at least get some TV money for it.

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311562#Comment_121311562

i would imagine if the NH teams dont go south then the SH teams also wouldnt come north and those games are generally pretty important for generating revenue

not that i completely disagree though. i would like to see ireland experiment a little more when touring, id also like to see games against T2 nations - maybe something similar to last years NZ tour but with games against 'smaller' nations instead of nz maori

ersatz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311591#Comment_121311591

We should definitely be experimenting more with players and combinations on tour. I've praised Farrell and Joe for bringing in new players but I'd like to see younger players line out against top opposition more often between world cups. Just because the 6N is bread and butter doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to rest front line players for tours of the SH, for example.

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311659#Comment_121311659

agreed, having said that since SA is the only big tour Ireland havent won so far, i wouldnt be surprised if its all out next summer. getting one over on the rwc winners wouldnt be a bad thing either tbh

Podge_irl

Tours are about to become less varied, not more with the Nations League nonsense.

Dubinusa

I don't think we'll suffer too much. Sexton will be tough to replace and they've identified Crowley as next up. There are lads about to be eased out of the squad but, there's great talent waiting for their chance.

ScissorPaperRock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311562#Comment_121311562

Would you prefer to play SH opposition only in the WC? I'd assume they wouldn't come north if it wasn't a reciprocal relationship.

Also... sometimes it seems like people don't actually enjoy watching rugby? I'm looking forward to the tests in SA... any opportunity to see our national side go up against the world champions or the ABs is exciting.

Buer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121311996#Comment_121311996

I think there has to be an inevitable mental hangover from the tournament. Fortunately, we play France first and they're in the exact same boat. We've lost Sexton but they've lost Atonio who has always given us problems.

I reckon that game will be a huge moment for us. Win it, and we're talking about another Grand Slam. Lose it, and we'll have a lot of talk about rebuilding and the need to move on from certain players. There will be some significant ages in the squad by the start of next season: POM (35) , Murray (35), Kilcoyne (35), Bundee (34), Herring (34). As it stands, only Aki and Herring are signed up beyond 2024 and I'd almost be surprised at this point if the first three signed up again.

I don't think talent is the problem but mentality and leadership could well be. I will never see POM as being the most talented player in the world (although his skill set is significantly underrated) but he is incredibly combative, determined and committed. Baird is comfortably a better athlete and more powerful than POM but I never expect him to reach the levels of POM because of the difference in mentality and influence.

Not only the players, but the coaching team will come under a little scrutiny. Farrell is obviously rock solid at the moment as is Easterby. Catt's contract was only up to the RWC and there has been no mention of any replacement or new contract which is curious. I'd have thought they'd have someone lined up at this stage already unless Farrell is looking to take charge of things himself. Prendergast is the obvious choice but he's just in the door overall so I'd be surprised if he left Munster at this point in their project. Richie Murphy is also someone that has barely been mentioned and is within the system and more easily moved as well as having experience as a coach with the senior team previously.

Mick Kearney has already departed from the set up. Not influential in terms of coaching but I'm sure there's influence in terms of the camp.

The two set piece/forward coaches are potentially going to be under a little pressure after the RWC. Both line out and scrum were fairly poor right through the warm ups and the tournament. The line out in particular was fairly atrocious. POC strikes me as someone who would walk away if he felt he wasn't meeting his own standards/expectations. I think the line out will be under huge scrutiny in the 6N. It wasn't a personnel issue either. It collapsed in multiple games regardless of who was throwing/calling/jumping.

Fogarty probably has a little more leeway as the scrum got away with it at times until the NZ game and the line out malfunctions overshadowed the scrum shortcomings. We were lucky against SA where they shot themselves in the foot conceding a free kick and penalty for early shoves when they were fairly roasting us there overall.