ENGLAND-13 IRELAND-10

CARE FULLY DOES IT

It took me a good 24 hours to get my head into a place where I could watch this match again. 

Naturally no sports fan enjoys watching their team get beaten, but when that defeat is to England AND takes both Triple Crown and Grand Slam off the table, the disappointment increases by a multitude.

But when I finally calmed down and watched it over, the haze caused by my green goggles began to subside and it was like I was watching a different match.

I’m not sure rugby union has seen a test match that embodies what professionalism has brought to the game more than this one - it was mesmerising to watch, fascinating to analyse and ultimately immensely satisfying for the victorious England outfit and rightly so.

The contest brought together two coaching philosophies that were being tested against each other for the first time.  And with the two week gap between this round and the previous one, there was double the amount of time for pundits from all around the game to predict which way each would go.

But the thing about rugby - no scratch that - ANY team sport is that you can do all the preparation you want on training “paddocks” and look at all the DVDs you want…that only gets you to the kickoff.  Once the two strategies come together you then have 80 minutes to adapt on the fly until the day is done, and on this occasion, the team which did that better emerged the winners.

For me it’s not so much that either team did their preparation wrong as such, but it was more the mentality that was instilled in the players, particularly on the offensive side of things.

But first, let’s look at the defence.  The scoreline should tell you everything…it was both disciplined and organised by both teams.  There are many who give out about tackle stats and it’s true, often they are used out of context, but the English made a whopping 164 tackles to our 117, which is about right since Ireland enjoyed 59% of the possession.

It was almost as if despite all the English desire to turn Twickenham into a “fortress”, they were instead performing more like the away team, a zone where it seems Lancaster-led teams tend to find themselves very comfortable.

Still…Ireland were no slouches without the ball either, as the Danny Care try, which I’ll give more detail on later, demonstrated.  When England got themselves into our 22 through conventional phase-play, there was no way past the green lin.

When it comes to individual tackle counts, names like Robshaw (22), Launchbury (18) Twelvetrees (16) and Morgan (14 from the bench) stand out on the England side, with Henry, Toner and (let’s be sure and highlight this before I give out about him) Sexton leading the stats for Ireland.

Yet even with a stalemate between two defences, there are always going to be opportunities, and here is where I feel the mindset came into play.

Simply put, I believe the result came from an offence based on patience winning out against one based on faith. 

That doesn’t mean I’m saying those two coming together will always produce the same result, I’m just saying it did here.

If you study Ireland’s offence not only Saturday, but all throughout this Six Nations campaign, you will see we are still to score a try in the first half an hour of play of any match.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for most sides, but I believe it is for teams orchestrated by Joe Schmidt and Johnny Sexton.

In the first two rounds, we happened to be up against teams who were either unable to keep up with our game over 80 minutes or unwilling to change their own.  This time, we were faced by an England side who had clearly targeted the areas where we planned to gain superiority and if they couldn’t beat us at them, at least equal us.

Look at the way the match both started and finished, with choke tackles.  What, you mean that method Ireland used to such success against Australia, I hear you say?  Yes, that one, only in both the 1st and 80th minutes, it was England employing it to perfection.

Naturally the Irish coaching staff had been working with Sexton and the entire squad on ways of picking through the England defence, and one of these ways was via a little kick over the top or other times crossfield to the opposite winger.

This is where faith comes in.  By putting together a strict set of plays similar to that used by an NFL quarterback, you are going into a match assuming that not only will you perform every technical aspect of the move perfectly, but so will everyone around you.

Just the once, that faith was rewarded. 

Going into halftime with a duck-egg could be seen as a major blow for the Irish team, though as things turned out, being a mere 3 points down wasn’t so bad with England opting for a lineout in our 22 in the closing stages and failing to add to their early lead.

Well whatever we lacked in offensive preparation at the beginning of the first half certainly wasn’t lacking in the second.  Though not for the first time a Sexton penalty from hand failed to get deep enough into the English 22 for our famed “lineout/maul”, we still had a move up our sleeve and it was a joy to behold.

You really have to watch the try in slow-mo to appreciate everything that is going on, and not just for the try but from the lineout itself.  Orchestrating moves off a set piece is one thing, but to have schemes in place two or three phases down the line (the famed Schmidt “power play”) afterwards is raising the bar of excellence into the clouds.

Yet with Paul O’Connell and Jamie Heaslip blocking off the likes of Launchbury and Marler, Sexton doing a dummy wraparound and Rob Kearney storming into the space and planting his foot just at the right moment, his try under the posts looked all too easy and was clearly a vindication of all the hard work put in.

Now I’m not saying that was the only decent offensive Irish contribution on the day, and it must be noted that Brian O’Driscoll had one of his best ball-carrying outings in a long time.  It’s just that apart from one try and one penalty, those advances were not turned into points.

And so it was 7-3 to Ireland.  A narrow lead it’s true, but one which Ireland’s defence was trained to bring home.  Only thing that could cost us would be our own mistakes.

Well our forwards almost made a fatal one off the restart as Billy Twelvetrees recovered it for his side immediately from Farrell’s boot.  Here is where the English offensive mentality differed to ours. 

They had a chance in the opening minutes I mentioned earlier and it didn’t quite work out.  They had other chances in the first half getting into our 22 all of which were thwarted as well…I’m not so sure if you quite call getting stymied by a well-drilled D as “leaving points on the pitch” as some pundits said, but still, it was patience they needed.

You always get the impression from a Lancaster team that they are expected to be like a coiled spring, not only ready to tackle the opposition into oblivion but also ready to pounce and make maximum hay when they see so much as a sliver of sunshine.

This is why I don’t really think Johnny May belongs in their team.  With more conviction he would have scored in the opening minutes, but that planted more doubt in his mind so that after Twelvetrees’ restart retrieval, I fully believe the corner was at May’s mercy yet after a quick look he cut back inside the the relative safety of the tackle.

A few minutes later, after a rare successful kick through from Sexton dropped in the 22, May panicked and forced it into touch off Brown to give Ireland the lineout throw.  It was our first opportunity to attempt our lineout/maul and although the English couldn’t handle it we still got a pen thanks to Lawes to put us 10-3 to the good with an even bigger lead to bring home.

But May seemed to be the only one who wasn’t signing from Lancaster’s hymnsheet.  A few minutes later, a penalty at halfway could have been kicked to the corner but England were chasing the game so Danny Care took a quick tap and although we got ourselves organised we still conceded a kickable pen under the posts.  6-10, still a good margin for Ireland.

Now here’s the awkward bit.  When you have faith in your offence, you also have faith in your key player’s ability to make the right choice in the right situation.

I’m sure Johnny Sexton had a rationale for going for a restart which his forwards could win back.  No doubt one of those rationales was faith that his boys could get the job done, especially with Devin Toner on the park.  Obviously he also would have had faith in his own ability to put the ball where it needed to be.

But sometimes, we can overthink in situations which really are alarmingly simple.  That restart should have gone deep into England’s 22, end of.  It didn’t, and sugar-coat it all you want but the match-winning try resulted directly from that error of judgement.

Of course England still had to get the try, and it was a case of their patience paying off.  It started with a positively awful scrum (we definitely laid the ghosts of 2012 to rest, for all the good it did us) which they won but saw themselves forced back towards their own 22.

Jack Nowell, who unlike May has impressed greatly in this series after a shaky start in Paris, retrieved the situation and turned it back into front foot ball.  And for just a split second, they saw before them an Irish team who thought they were going to win back the ball and instead had to regroup on defence.  Now was the time for precision, and three of Conor O’Shea’s Harlequins supplied it.

First, there was Robshaw - who quietly won the battle of the breakdown but here he was needed to carry & offload, something he did very well, though Conor Murray, who like his fellow Irish halfback seemed knackered already at this point, certainly could have done better in his challenge to prevent the offload.

Then deserving man of the match Mike Brown took a line every bit as good at Kearney the Elder’s earlier and suddenly they were in open play deep in the Irish backfield.  And not only did he have the space, he also had the support in Danny Care who had time to celebrate and place the ball down under the posts.  13-10 England.

Now we were the ones chasing the game.  And now our faith in our offence was being put to its biggest test in Joe Schmidt’s short reign.  We had a full 20 minutes, but not only did it make a difference that we badly needed a score, it also didn’t help that it was like we were playing ourselves as the defence.

For that entire final quarter, it really did look as though we had nothing left in the tank.  Fancy moves were tried but tired limbs were unable to carry them out, while it seemed England’s were good to the last as borne out by Launchbury’s excellent tap-tackle on Dave Kearney.  One of the reasons Paddy Jackson not Ian Madigan was on the bench was that it was assumed a steady hand was needed to bring home a lead rather than one to fashion something out of nothing, so that wasn’t really an option.

Was the referee a factor?  Well Farrell’s late hit on Murray and Lawes’ foul play at the maul could have been yellows, plus there was an English hand in the scrum missed which could have given us a shot at levelling it.  Also  a Johnny May touch clearance was easily outside his 22.  Of course no doubt the official missed some Irish transgressions, though I did see an Iain Henderson knockon go unnoticed towards the end.

Still, I couldn’t say I saw enough to equate the result with referee Craig Joubert.  We were unable to execute in areas we needed to while England were.  And even then, they only won by three.

Because like I said at the very start of this writeup, a night’s sleep and reflection makes you look at this result in a whole different light.  This was Lancaster’s 12th Six Nations match as coach.  He has done a wonderful job with his players, bringing players like Brown, Launchbury and Nowell from Premiership hopefuls to test regulars.

But…as he and the English media have been at pains to remind us of late, this is a team that’s “building towards RWC2015”.  And I can’t help but think that the England we saw on Saturday is pretty much the same England we’ll see in 2015.  Still a good thing for them, but not much room for change.

As for Joe Schmidt, this was but his 3rd competitive test, and his first away from home in one of the most intimidating atmospheres imaginable.  He too has an amazing squad of players, and on the same weekend he had all four of his provinces achieve impressive wins away from home.  So for a man who recovered from two slippery Septembers and one dodgy December with Leinster to bring silverware home, I can’t think of anyone better equipped to turn things around.

If we want to as Irish fans, we can bitch and moan about who should have been in the team or what they should have done on the day.

OR…we can take a look at the table, see ourselves at the top with a 3-converted try gap in the points difference column, and realise that we play next at home to Italy, and if we win that, whatever happens anywhere else, we will go to Paris with a shot at the title.

Nobody is saying it’s going to be easy, but I definitely still have faith.  JLP

Click here for post-match reactions on the HarpinOnRugby Facebook page

Also this weekend

Wales 27 - 6 France

Italy 20 - 21 Scotland

		P	W	D	L	PD	PTS
1	IRELAND	3	2	0	1	42	4
2	ENGLAND	3	2	0	1	21	4
3	WALES	3	2	0	1	6	4
4	FRANCE	3	2	0	1	1	4
5	SCOTLAND	3	1	0	2	-41	2
6	ITALY	3	0	0	3	-29	0

England Under-20s 33 - 9 Ireland Under-20s

England Women 17-10 Ireland Women

IRELAND-6 ENGLAND-12

SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO

“When we beat Wales, Kidney is a hero. When we lose he has to go. Make up your f***ing mind.”

My apologies to the tweeter I'm quoting above – saw it on my timeline last night and didn't remember to “favourite” it so I can't place the credit where it's due. But it sets up the theme of my writeup nicely.

The point is definitely well made. Whenever things go wrong for Ireland these days, the “debate” on twitter generally descends into a “clash” between demands for “Kidney out” and defensive cries of “Kidney ligind!” and more often than not the battle lines are drawn on a provincial basis.

But there is one way I feel the tweet misses the point somewhat, because I believe both statements are true.

England's success under Stuart Lancaster is as much to do with his PR management as it is to do with his rugby tactics, but mostly because they are very much intertwined. His remit was clearly to put an end to the dwarf-throwing and the ferry-jumping and have his team playing rugby, and he has done just that.

You won't get a better example of the fruits of his efforts than Sunday's battle in Dublin. And the stark contrast between his approach and that of Declan Kidney was laid bare for all who were willing to see.

Put in the most simplest terms, I believe that if it were the English winger that came off after just 10 minutes, followed by the English out-half on 30 minutes, Lancaster's team would have played exactly the same. But instead it happened to Ireland, and we saw the result.

And before I go on, I have to say what a terrible blow it was for Simon Zebo in particular after such a wave of deserved good feeling towards him during the week. But he's a strong lad and will be back scoring tries before you know it.

Because of all the bickering I spoke of earlier, I now feel the need to state that in my view, Declan Kidney is by no means a bad coach and his successes with Munster & Ireland can never be taken away from him. Anyone who suggests otherwise just doesn't know what they're talking about.

But does that record make him “untouchable”? Absolutely not. He walked into the Irish job and delivered the Grand Slam, which we will live long in our memories. Since then, however, we have seen a team that has failed to come anywhere near approaching a level of consistency that could win five matches on the trot.

I don't know if Declan plays Texas Hold Em poker, but if he does, I'd say he's a great fan of the phrase “all in”. Which is ironic, because most people describe him as “conservative”. I'm not too sure that's the right choice of words.

He seems to govern his decision-making by a process whereby he has a tight set of “anointed” players, plays and tactics, and goes into battle with them, whatever the opposition does, whatever the weather does, and perhaps most crucially, whatever way the referee is interpreting the laws of the game.

If you're locked into this mindset, you make yourself just like the little girl who had the little curl right in the middle of her “forrid”. When Ireland played Wales, they were very, very good – with the English in town they were 'orrid.

Not that everything was poor from Ireland – the defence was mostly solid and there was no way England were ever going to score a try bar one Tuilagi chance. But I stress the word “mostly”. Our defensive mindset, effective overall as it has been over the years, is yet another example of the risks of going “all-in”.

The first penalty of a rugby match usually gives you an idea of what areas the referee will be looking at. In Jerome Garces' case, it seemed to be he was to focus on “not rolling away after the tackle”. I'd be pretty sure he would have mentioned this to the two captains before kickoff, or at least that is often the case.

But Ireland are locked in to the choke tackle concept. So when Jamie Heaslip and Cian Healy tackled Billy Twelvetrees on just the 2nd minute, since they both grabbed him at the same time, they put the decision in the hands of the ref as to which one of them was the “tackler” and thus should release him. Healy thought he was ok to go straight into “jackling” mode...sadly Garces had other ideas and soon after Farrell was putting the first points over the bar.

We needn't worry, Irish fans may have thought. We got three excellent tries last week, no doubt we'll be on the board ourselves before long, right?

Not when you realise last week we were playing a shell-shocked Wales while this we were facing a tightly-organised England. Yet once more, we were locked in to a set of plays that barring a neat reverse pass from Murray to Earls that worked a couple of times, never looked like troubling the visiting defence.

But because we were “all-in” and there was no Plan B on the table, we had no “choice” but to keep persisting with the strategy, no matter how many different players were knocking on, no matter how well Alex Goode was dealing with our kicks into their back field, no matter how well the onrushing defensive line was smothering us.

And notice how they weren't giving away kickable penalties? Most telling number in the match for me was 44 – it was in that minute that we had our first shot at goal.

Another Munster ligind who often gets abuse is Ronan O'Gara. But I lay absolutely no blame at his door for what happened on Sunday. Yet again, I must use the phrase “all-in”. After a period of time when the only debate in Irish rugby was whether or not it was Sexton or ROG for the Irish 10 jersey, once the World Cup was over Kidney finally made a decision...unfortunately he seemed to think he had only two options.

Now we see an O2 ad featuring Sexton that will certainly haunt us on RTE if he can't make the Scotland game and O'Gara is left rueing one of his worst outings in an Ireland jersey because his coach had absolutely no faith in what talent was on display at the provinces.

For an example of what else Kidney could have done, again I point to Lancaster. He too has varying personalities in his squad, but no matter who comes on the pitch for him they seem to be able to play the role of the player they replaced. Tuilagi didn't seem to do that much different to what Twelvetrees was doing with the ball, for example. When Sexton was replaced by ROG, our entire offence had to change, not necessarily for the worse, but often the change itself can be bad for the team.

Yet going by the Wolfhounds' outing against the Saxons, it appears that in Kidney's thinking, the next 10 down the line is Paddy Jackson, someone who is certainly a lot closer to O'Gara's style of stewardship. At the strong risk of Leinster-goggle accusations, I suggest that having Ian Madigan as backup to Sexton would provide a much more seamless substitution at any stage of a test match, as would Jackson coming on for ROG.

But this “locked in” thinking, I believe anyway, has proven to be our undoing. Next up for testing this theory, the captaincy of Jamie Heaslip.

It was certainly a bold move to take the title from BOD, and at least Kidney came out and owned the decision himself. The announcement, however, was an omnishambles from a PR standpoint given all the confusion that came afterwards. Still – it was a sword he was to either live or die by.

Jamie was never right yesterday. Eddie Butler & Brian Moore picked apart his second unforced error in the first half and rightly so. But the moment I want to highlight is the one in the picture – the second Ireland were awarded that first kickable penalty on 44 minutes.

Garces has blown his whistle and Heaslip stands up from the scrum. But rather than indicate to the ref right away and point straight to the sticks, he instead looks to Gordon D'Arcy and sticks his thumb up as if to say “We definitely need to kick this. Don't we?”.

I still think Jamie is a worthy choice for Irish captain, but I'm not sure he ever dreamed of doing it while O'Driscoll was on the pitch with him. And add the indecision above to BOD being the one to order a kick for touch before halftime in Cardiff, and you get a serious confusion in leadership on the pitch which has to hark back to the coach.

This lacking will also have its affect on “dee-see-pleene” as Garces kept calling it. It wasn't the worst refereeing display I've ever seen, though his “talking to”s need some work, if only with his use of the English language! More than once he called the two captains over and looked poised to say several words yet could only come out with one.

But more often than not, even though the only yellow card was for an Englishman (and could have been two if Garces interpreted Ben Youngs's first-half no-no a little more harshly), it was an Irishman affording the chances for kicks at goal, which can only mean one thing when you're facing a kicker of Owen Farrell's consistency.

Quick paragraph on the booing of the kicker. Yes, they are morons. But no, it had nothing to do with them being Irish. If we want to stamp it out, we either need to say something ourselves when it happens near us or put pressure on the organisers to take more action. It can't be that difficult to make examples of the culprits.

Speaking of stamping out, I'd be surprised if Cian Healy wasn't cited for what he did, the most glaring example of our lack of dee-see-pleene. But I'd also be very surprised if he got more than a one-week ban, judging by the various rulings in recent times to people like Dylan Hartley. Which means Church isn't out of the frame for selection against Scotland. The rules may be stupid, but we've seem them work in other countries' favour before many's a time, how about we benefit for once.

Funnily enough, there's no real need for a long spiel on our set-pieces. Scrums weren't perfect but far from Twickenham proportions, though we all know that's because this time Ross stayed on the park so that elephant remains firmly in our room.  And in the lineout I repeat what I said last week – fix the darts, Rory, and the Lions jumper should be yours.

So to summarise...Ireland had nothing to counter a strong English defence and paid the price, which means a week after breaking our string of defeats against the Welsh, we now have a string of three defeats against our “old enemy” to break.

Which leads me to what I think should happen now. The bulk of the online debate after full-time was about how Ireland should deal with replacing the injuries to Sexton & Zebo. I think the Irish team means more drastic action.

Last Thursday, February 7th was officially Stephen McNamara's last day in Ryanair's employ. Which I suppose means he now takes up his new role as the IRFU Director of Communications.

I believe Declan Kidney should announce this week that he will be leaving the Irish post at the end of his current contract, which is after the summer tour. And it would be down to McNamara to spin it in such a way that his positive achievements with the national team will be remembered more than the negative ones. That's why he is being paid the big bucks, after all.

Announcing it now will give the IRFU time to find a replacement, it will give us a chance to say “goodbye” to Kidney at the Aviva against France, and overall could act as a boost to a team that, let's not forget, is still VERY much in the running to finish first in this Six Nations Championship. England still have a resurgent Wales and a wounded France to put away before their chariot can swing TOO low, and four wins could very well be enough to top the table.

As things stand, if nothing is done or said in response to this disappointing performance/result, the uncertainly will remain, as will the lack of confidence.

What I'm afraid of most is the IRFU falling into their familiar pattern of doing nothing in the hope that we'll pull out at least one more good display in this tournament and use that as a reason (excuse?) for awarding a new contract.

Either way, McNamara has his work cut out in his new job – he might prefer a gig handling the Vatican's coaching ticket!

Seriously though...sorry to harp on too much about the Irish coach but I feel it's a hot button issue within our camp.

Bravo to Stuart Lancaster, man-of-the-match skipper Chris Robshaw and the entire English set-up for coming out on top...their road ahead won't be easy, but they are surely well set for a Grand Slam now. JLP

Also this weekend

Ireland Under-20s 16 - 15 England Under-20s

Scotland 34 - 10 Italy

Ireland Women-25 England Women-0

France 6 - 16 Wales

CLICK HERE FOR THE HoR WRITEUP OF THIS WEEKEND’S LEINSTER MATCH

Ireland-14 England-13

ALMIGHTY BOD

Back in July 08, right before this season began I did a post entitled “How Will BO’D be remembered?”

I asserted that our esteemed international rugby captain should in no way be assured of a starting spot on the Lions at the time and the thrust of my argument was in this statement :

…I believe the upcoming season is crucial for BO’Ds legacy. He needs a string of outstanding performances, he needs his name regularly in the back page headlines, he needs to be the inspiration to meaningful silverware for his teams.

Well we had the wonder try against Wasps. A clever little shimmy to go over versus France. A sprint the length of the field in Rome.

And on Saturday, the pièce de résistance to grace Ireland’s Six Nations swansong from Croker – an 80 minute display that was rugby’s answer to cricket’s “a captain’s innings”. So now I can’t see how McGeechan could possibly leave him behind.

Sure, ROG wasn’t at the races with the boot. If his misses had gone over it would have been a 12-point victory just like I predicted. But if this is a team which has its eyes on winning it all, it needs to know it can do so even when we’re not firing on all cylinders.

You didn’t have to be wise enough not to put tomatoes in fruit salads to know that England were going to do all they could to frustrate us on the day, and in my view, they did a pretty good job of it all told.

Our skipper seemed to bear the brunt of their attention. First Flutey rings his bell. Then Armitage gave him a block which had me out of my chair ranting and raving at the television screen, though sadly I wasn’t able to persuade the ref to produce his card.

But despite O’Driscoll constantly holding his head, he wasn’t afraid to put it down and charge at the English defence to touch down for the match-winning score, which turned out to be the difference.

And as for his drop goal…well if the sheer opportunism made it sweet, the execution made it sublime. I don’t get the rules of rugby enough though – seemingly there would have been a yellow card for an Englishman if he had missed? Surely if there’s an infringement worthy of a card it should be issued regardless???

Now…as for overall performance, well, I really hope that Declan Kidney has seen enough of Paddy Wallace to realise he’s not the man to have at centre. To bring home this particular bacon, it’s time to reunite Drico and Darce.

Remember, it was the Ulsterman who coughed up the ball late on and it eventually led to their try which made it so close. So he’s had his 80 minutes now, coach, ok?

Other than that, I see no reason for this team not to remain focused and get the job done in both Edinburgh and Cardiff. And nice and all though the Grand Slam may be, I don’t know about you but the Championship itself would do me just fine.

It looks like my 40th birthday, which is the day the potential Six Nations decider between Wales and Ireland is played, is going to be one hell of a day.