Are We So Back?
After an up-and-down Six Nations and a largely disappointing summer Nations Championship campaign, it was a nervy wait for the second leg of the latter to start for Ireland’s men’s team. The continued absence of Caelan Doris and Jack Crowley, alongside the loss of Jack Conan and Garry Ringrose, were worrying in themselves, but more concerning was the clunkiness that we saw in July, with a team that just couldn’t seem to link up and get going consistently in the ways that we would have associated with them over the last several years.
Fortunately, those worries were — largely — put to rest with a comprehensive 42–12 dismantling of Argentina, accompanied by one of the team’s most impressive all-around performances of the last few years. They looked for long periods like a team free of doubt and full of belief, ready to back themselves and take on the world.
Reassuring as that is, especially given that they’ve tended towards slow starts to international windows recently, it doesn’t necessarily answer all of the questions that remain around this team. Is this a flash in the pan, or could they be belatedly establishing themselves as genuine World Cup contenders?
Reasons for optimism:
· In their 2022–2023 pomp, Ireland were probably the best phase play team in the world, with immaculate handling skills and elaborate rehearsed attacking shapes. They’ve wobbled at times since, but this was about as good as I’ve seen them since the World Cup. Witness the beautiful link-up between Rob Baloucoune, Mack Hansen and Hugo Keenan for the latter’s first try, or the interplay between Nick Timoney and Dan Sheehan for Sheehan’s try. They were afforded a good mixture of opportunities to show set moves and some unstructured play, and did well at both, which will be especially pleasing given that they’ve often struggled at the latter. Fiji, who thrive in chaos, will be a real test in that regard.
· Ireland’s line-out has veered wildly back and forth in recent years; sometimes one of the most reliable in the world, sometimes unpredictable and messy. On Friday, we saw a great deal of the former, with some nice set plays in attack and brilliant reads in defence, particularly from Ryan Baird. The second and third Irish tries both came directly from line-out — one an Irish set play, the other an excellent steal from Baird that was seized upon well by his teammates. Plenty for Paul O’Connell to be pleased with.
· Similarly pleased will be Simon Easterby, because Ireland’s defence was resolute, robust and, most importantly, connected. Given that they’ve had only a couple of weeks together, this was really quite impressive, all the more so given that they visibly struggled in this respect against Australia in July. They’ll review the Argentinian scores, but the first in particular is relatively acceptable — Los Pumas did well to bunch them up, and it was a fine kick from Tomas Albornoz.
· I’ve already praised their link-up for Keenan’s try, but it’s worth reiterating that the back three looked absolutely world-class here. Hansen was evasive and unpredictable, always looking to create something and often succeeding. Baloucoune was a roving menace, capable in the air and a constant threat with ball in hand. And Keenan, while a safe pair of hands as always, continually put himself in positions to carve through the Argentinian defence. I would imagine Baloucoune, given his injury profile, might be rested for Fiji, but the other two should get a chance to go again this week, possibly linking up with the always dangerous Tommy O’Brien, and we can hope for more fireworks.
· There were great performances across the pitch — I haven’t even mentioned Joe McCarthy, who is really cementing himself as one of Ireland’s most reliable players, or Andrew Porter, who was excellent in the carry and the scrum. But I have to pick out the two half-backs. This was a huge opportunity for Craig Casey, and he really took it, looking assured and confident throughout and picking some very good options. Meanwhile, Sam Prendergast brought all of his calm and assuredness from his Leinster form here, most obviously for his fine try, but he did almost everything very well, and the few things that didn’t go well didn’t seem to faze him. Especially given that Ciarán Frawley also did well when he came on, it’s all very encouraging.
· Discipline has been a struggle for Ireland at times, most notably in the South Africa game last November, when they ended up with 12 players on the pitch for a short period. Here, though, they were generally on Luke Pearce’s right side, conceding only six penalties, three of those in a cluster that led to Sam Illo’s (quite harsh) yellow card. It’s far easier to avoid penalties in a game that you’re largely controlling, of course, but they still deserve some real credit for that.
Reasons for doubt:
· Now, apart from their excellent first try, I haven’t mentioned Argentina much, and there are reasons for that. They won’t exactly be looking back on this as one that got away from them; rather, this is a game that they just weren’t really in after the first 20 minutes or so. That’s not all their own fault — they were absolutely ravaged by injuries, losing two hookers (the second only temporarily) and with a constant rotating door of subs — I imagine Mayco Vivas probably racked up higher GPS stats going on and off the pitch three times than in the minutes when he actually played. Moreover, they’re a team who can struggle for cohesion, especially when they don’t get much time together beforehand — witness their home demolishing by Scotland in July. They fought on, and managed to push their way back into the game somewhat in the second half, but even so they never really looked threatening.
· Relatedly, one of the big talking points going into this game was the Irish scrum, which was blown away by the Springboks in November and looked dodgy again through the Six Nations. And it’s quite hard to say how it went on Friday, given all that injury disruption. Argentina clearly wanted to go at it, hence Boris Wenger’s brief cameo at hooker, so its stability is probably a positive, but it’s hard to say it was really tested. There are positives, notably Sam Illo’s performance and Porter’s brief cameo at tighthead, but there are certainly sterner tests to come.
· Even in some of their lesser performances, Ireland have generally been one of the most efficient teams in the world in the opposition 22, and it looked very much like that would be the case here for 60 minutes. But as it transpired, the final 20 minutes was just a bit of a mess. It’s not that Ireland did a whole lot wrong in that period, and they did well to keep Argentina out, but it’s disappointing that they didn’t score after the 55th minute. It’s worth comparing to England’s similarly dominant victory over Australia, where they scored throughout the game, including (slightly fortuitously) in the final five minutes. Ireland will want to keep the boot on the throat if they show similar dominance against Fiji.
· On a related point, given the quality and experience of the players on the bench, one would expect a little more bench impact than we saw. Nobody is deserving of criticism particularly, and Ronan Kelleher did particularly well in coming on for Sheehan before the end of the first half, but it’s probably an illustration of how odd the momentum of the game had gotten that Jamison Gibson-Park didn’t particularly alter the tempo when he came on. Josh van der Flier carried well in a disrupted back row and Tom O’Toole combined well with Illo in the scrum, but James Ryan’s chief involvement was a silly penalty shortly after coming on, which he’ll doubtless want to atone for.
Fiji coming to town should be an entertaining occasion, at the very least. They struggled to make much happen against a relatively messy French performance, but it did look like Jake White has been trying to inject some more structure into their attack. We’re yet to see how successful that proves to be, but they’ll certainly be looking to improve on their woeful performances in July.
I’m assuming we’ll see a few changes from Ireland, but not wholesale ones. The returnees in particular will likely stay on for some more minutes, though I could see Cian Prendergast getting a shot in the back row (Baird may move to the second row, or be rested entirely). It’s likely the kind of match where you could see players who hover somewhere around third choice — the likes of Tom Stewart, Nathan Doak and perhaps Billy Bohan — get a shot, as against Japan. I’d like to see Doak in particular get a decent run-out; there may even be an argument for starting him, as with Casey this week.
It’s also worth noting that as I’ve been writing this, it’s been confirmed that Sean Jansen is out for the rest of the championship, while Sheehan is following return-to-play protocols and will miss next weekend. Baloucoune and van der Flier are being monitored, and as mentioned above, I can’t see the former being risked. If van der Flier isn’t fit, there might even be a spot on the bench for Ulster’s Dave McCann, whose praises I’m constantly singing in my provincial round-ups, so that would be nice for me specifically.
My 23 for Fiji:
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1. Andrew Porter
2. Ronan Kelleher
3. Thomas Clarkson
4. Joe McCarthy
5. Tadhg Beirne (captain)
6. Cian Prendergast
7. Nick Timoney
8. James McNabney
9. Jamison Gibson-Park
10. Sam Prendergast
11. Mack Hansen
12. Stuart McCloskey
13. Jamie Osborne
14. Tommy O’Brien
15. Hugo Keenan
16. Tom Stewart
17. Billy Bohan
18. Sam Illo
19. James Ryan
20. Josh van der Flier (if fit)/Dave McCann
21. Nathan Doak
22. Ciarán Frawley
23. Robbie Henshaw
