[update Nov 6, 2013] Archive time…the last time Samoa came to Dublin, I was doing my best to shield Declan Kidney from criticism after a downward spiral of results since the Grand Slam. Also, if you follow the IRB rankings (though you can be forgiven for ignoring them), Ireland were 5 places ahead of Samoa going into this match while now we’re one place behind them. But there is one thing the two contests have in common…they must be taken in context on the road to the next World Cup. Here is how I wrote up the match.
When I finished watching this match live, I was about as depressed as I would’ve been if I had watched 80 minutes of commentary on the Irish economy.
On second look, however, things weren’t so bad…I get a sense from Kidney’s men that they’re using these games as a means to prepare ourselves for the New Zealand tournament next year.
Of course that’s not much consolation for the 31,000 fans who not only fronted up the cash but also braved the poor conditions at Lansdowne Road on Saturday, but we mustn’t forget how quickly internationals are running out for us between now and next September.
In his post-match interview, Ronan O’Gara pointed out that playing an expansive game in the backline may work well in dry southern hemisphere conditions, but has no place when the rain is teeming down for the second Saturday in a row.
What that admission did for me was to illustrate how much our backline resembles a Formula 1 car, with the outhalf being the tyres.
We have at our disposal two Number 10s who work well under different conditions. Sexton is the guy for the fancy moves which are no doubt born on a whiteboard with x’s and o’s all over the place, but should the conditions be wet, ROG is your only man to boot the ball into the right areas and let the forwards grind out a victory.
And guess what, that’s exactly how we got our opening try. O’Gara kicked a penalty from the hand to an attacking lineout, we got amazing crash momentum thanks to a linkup between Heaslip and Leamy, and after a succession of gaining phases it was the Number 8 himself who got the final touchdown.
This was how we were going to score against the Samoans, and if you remove their try from the equation you’ll see that for the rest of the contest, this is exactly how we tried to go over again when we had the ball. Yes, the backs tried to fling it around, but they always tended towards the middle – whoever received the ball in the 12 or 13 channel would either chuck it back inside or in BODs case play flanker himself and run the ball into contact.
Those offensive tactics after the try actually made sense to me, though they didn’t appear to suit O’Gara, whose timing was clearly off having been taken out of his comfort zone. Two blocked kicks in the first half together with a heart-stopping moment over his own try line in the second didn’t cost us, but would have against stronger opposition.
Trouble for us is that having named our backline on the previous Tuesday, it’s not so easy to bring it in for a pitstop and change the tyres before kickoff if the weather isnt right. But if we ARE going to play O’Gara perhaps we should let him play his game like he did in the last 20 minutes last Saturday.
Now to revisit my sentence about “removing their try from the equation”. Of course you can’t ignore their quick reply to Heaslip’s five-pointer, and the ease with which they scored is the source of the doom and gloom surrounding the result.
In some ways, Tuilagi’s touchdown was a copy of ours, in that it stemmed from a lineout preceded by a penalty, only this time they bamboozled us with their backs. On first glance it was a scintillating move dramatically finished by Tuilagi, but surely O’Gara and Wallace have played together enough over the years to know not to both get drawn towards the opposing fly-half? Only consolation to that error was that it didn’t happen again and our defence appeared solid for the rest of the afternoon.
But we must also examine what caused the penalty that led to that lineout…our front row conceding a penalty at a set scrum.
I’ll accept we have problems in the front five. I’ll accept that we’re badly missing Paul O’Connell. I’ll accept that John Hayes is past his sell-by date and we’re not exactly over-endowed with quality props to replace him. But I won’t accept that those factors alone led to our troubles in the scrum on Saturday.
Whatever the intentions of the latest IRB interpretations, Keith Brown made a mockery of them with his gaping silences between the words “crouch…touch…pause…engage”. True, Samoa had the right idea doing absolutely nothing to try and gain an advantage as front rows came together, but having played prop myself I know how much the engagement is part and parcel of the set piece itself.
To go to such great lengths to take that battle of wills out of the scrum not only removes its essence, but also makes a farce of the game as a whole with long pointless delays which a team with a weaker pack can exploit. And who is to say that when WE’RE the underdog next week, the All Blacks will be penalised as much for the same “offences”?
Luckily for us, we were able to rely on a fly-hack from O’Callaghan which he brilliantly followed up and won us a penalty for his Munster kinsmen Strings & ROG to combine for the clincher. Otherwise our scrummaging issues could’ve easily led to an embarrassing match-levelling penalty or worse.
But I sat down to write this post DETERMINED not to be too negative. Sure, it wasn’t easy, but I for one feel we can take several things from this match, not least the debut of Devin Toner. I really don’t want him to think of his first appearance in a green shirt as being such a disaster as from a personal standpoint, he can be proud as punch and surely must start next weekend for what he brings to our lineout.
Let’s not forget Declan Kidney’s remit. Do not repeat the “Farce in France” of ‘07. All the second-guessing in the world won’t take away from the fact that he can’t really be judged until we get stuck into our World Cup pool.
Everything that happens between now and then is just part of the process of finding the right formula, and I for one am willing to back him, especially as he is willing to hold his hand up when he gets things wrong like he did last week.
Our unbeaten streak is over, so what say we applaud that, regroup and stand shoulder to shoulder against the haka next Saturday.
PS : George Hook went the Armageddon route in his Indo column. Like I say, always good to have the glass-half-empty viewpoint, no matter how much you may disagree, so I’m happy to link to it.
******
ELSEWHERE…WALES WUZ WOBBED!!!!
I didn't get to see the England win over the Wallabies but what an impressive result it was. Perhaps Johnson finally has things right? After all that has gone before in his tenure I reckon he’ll need another positive outcome against the Springboks to answer that. The French seem to have hit the ground running themselves, so our “home advantage” in the Six Nations may not be as strong as it was in 2009.
What got my heckles up happened in Cardiff. Super effort by the Welsh, and if Devin Toner can be proud of his debut, then what can you say about George North’s??? I thought the media were being harsh dubbing him the “new Lomu” but he came up trumps.
My annoyance stemmed, not surprisingly, from the referees. Ahead by four points and under pressure on their own line as the clock went red, you can’t blame the South Africans for thwarting the opposition by giving away penalties, but my assertion is, if they’re pinged for it, given the circumstances, they should also be sent to the line. Having switched over from the Ireland game I counted at least 3 penalties deliberately conceded and by rights the Welsh should either have been pressing against 12 men or a yellow card for the first offence should’ve made it easier for them to get quick ball. And it’s made worse by the fact that in Verona, Leinster A’s lock Mariano Galarza did a no-no in the exact same scenario and DID get a yellow, and rightly so, though the Italians still fell short. The Millennium faithful certainly have every right to feel robbed in my book.
As for the All Blacks steamrolling over the Scots, the less said about that the better, since I’m trying to stay positive for next Saturday…
