It's not time for Ireland to panic (yet)
Thanks for checking out my Rugby World Cup Newsletter. If you like what I do here, please share it with your friends and help it grow! This week I’ll be looking mainly at Ireland’s hammering at the hands of England and what it means for their chances in Japan. Anyway, let’s get started.
What the hell happened at Twickenham?
Ireland were taught a lesson by England on Saturday. There’s no two ways about it. This was an absolute beat down. I’m not going to try and convince you that a 57-15 defeat less than a month away from the start of the World Cup is somehow a good thing but I’m not quite ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater over Ireland’s preparations for the tournament.
First, though, we need to acknowledge the many negatives for Ireland over the weekend. The line out was a disaster and the scrum was vulnerable. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the defensive line which was both narrow and passive. The shape seemed like it was set up to stop Manu Tuilagi but the lack of any linespeed meant he had time and space to just batter through the Irish defence.
The attack was totally uninspiring, with things only really getting going in the final ten minutes once the game was already gone. The distribution of offensive pods was unbalanced, causing Ireland to over-commit numbers to certain rucks (reducing the numbers in the attacking line) and under-serve others (giving England the chance to turn the ball over).
Ireland’s preferred halfback pairings are either injured (Sexton and Carbery), out of form (Marmion) or some combination of the two (Murray) and key players like CJ Stander, Rory Best and Rob Kearney are well below their 2018 levels.
But even with all of that, there is still light at the end of the tunnel. Saturday’s problems can all be fixed.
Structural issues made individuals look poor
Having faced two tough tests against Wales already, England are clearly further along in their preparations for Japan. For the first half hour or so, despite the obvious issues, Ireland more or less hung around and could have even had a healthy lead if they had taken advantage of one of Ben Youngs’ many brain farts.
Much has been made of Jacob Stockdale’s defensive deficiencies and if you just listened to the Sky Sports commentary you might think the Ulsterman was simply shooting out of the line for the hell of it.
But Stockdale was forced into the impossible task of defending two- and three-on-ones because of the bizarre defensive system Ireland deployed. Whereas Ireland’s defensive line has usually been wide and relatively quick under Andy Farrell, it was narrow and slow at the weekend.
I spoke a little before about South Africa’s blitz defence which uses a quick, narrow line to prevent the ball getting out wide but Ireland had nothing close to the required speed to match their narrow shape, which left the wingers horribly exposed.
You can see this on the first England try where Conor Murray bites in hard on the blindside while his opposite number Youngs joins the backline. With Jordan Larmour also minding the blindside wing and Jonny May coming inside, England have an overload of players that Ireland cannot deal with.
Owen Farrell and Tuilagi’s decoy lines hold Bundee Aki and Garry Ringrose inside and Stockdale is helpless to stop May spreading it to Elliot Daly.
Ireland are so narrow and unimposing that England manage to score out wide off their first phase without either of their centres touching the ball.
In attack, Ireland offered very little. They ran no set plays of note, there was no sustained phase play and they threw two offloads all game. The ball was simply sent out wide with no clear plan — a stark contrast to the 2018 Irish attacking gameplan, which was narrow but highly deliberate.
Last year, Ireland moved the ball from side to side in between the tramlines, constantly shifting which side was the blindside and which was the openside. This forced defenders to re-align multiple times and eventually a gap would appear as the defensive line folded over to the new openside, giving Ireland the space to attack.
This required huge amounts of patience and is one of the reasons Ireland have been accused of being boring. It’s also why Joe Schmidt’s side have found it difficult to chase leads as they lack the ability to strike quickly.
Instead of building the phases on Saturday, Ireland kicked away much of their possession. And rather than the box-kicking game we know they love, all of Saturday’s kicks came from players out in the line - usually Ross Byrne but also Ringrose and Kearney (and, on one occasion, Cian Healy).
It felt like a failure of the coaching staff more than of the players for things to be this fundamentally broken. It takes a team effort to mess up this badly. More time in camp and more game experience should help to iron out some of these mistakes.
The thing that worries me is the possibility that Ireland are trying to implement entirely new offensive and defensive systems on the eve of the World Cup. I’d be surprised if Schmidt tried to reinvent the wheel this close to the tournament, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say the structural gameplan was not the priority at the weekend.
It’s not time to panic yet. Ireland lost all their World Cup warm up internationals in 2011 and still got things together in time to beat Australia. This is still a good Ireland team with likes of Johnny Sexton, James Ryan and Robbie Henshaw yet to feature.
But another uninspired performance against Wales this coming weekend could see Ireland get caught in a 2007-esque negative feedback loop.
Ref Watch: Was Tuilagi’s hit on Larmour legal?
I’m finding this one very difficult. I’ve watched it about a hundred times over the weekend and I can see both sides of the argument. Gun to my head, I’d say it’s just on the right side of legal but it’s extremely close.
According to World Rugby, a shoulder charge occurs when the “arm of the shoulder making contact with the ball carrier is behind the tackler’s body or tucked in ‘sling’ position at contact”, while Law 9.16 states that “a player must not charge or knock down an opponent carrying the ball without attempting to grasp that player”.
Tuilagi’s right arm is not tucked going into the tackle and he does attempt to grasp at Larmour after the initial contact - but I don’t see any of the same effort with his left arm until after the “hit” has already been made.
I imagine this kind of tackle will be outlawed by the time the 2023 Rugby World Cup rolls round.
Meanwhile, in Tier 2…
It was a good weekend for the Tier 2 sides in their warm ups as Tonga beat the Western Force, Namibia and Uruguay both recorded wins over invitational sides and Canada only lost to Leinster on a last-minute try.
It’s a busy week for Georgia as they face the Southern Kings tonight before hosting Scotland at the weekend while Fiji and Tonga face off on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Barbarians have confirmed they will play Brazil on November 20 in São Paulo. The South Americans, who are currently ranked 26th in the world, will be the 24th international side to face the Baa-Baas.
Did Rob Kearney pass the ball this week?
Anyone who has watched a Leinster or Ireland match with me knows of my frustration with Rob Kearney’s refusal to pass to his teammates, so each week I will be asking the question: did Rob Kearney pass the ball?
This week’s answer: Yes! Rob passed the ball not once, but twice against England, even providing an exciting skip pass to Stockdale in the build up to Larmour’s ninth-minute try.
Unfortunately, Kearney did not throw another pass for the rest of the game and subsequently turned the ball over four times after taking it into contact.
Thanks to everyone for the messages about Kearney’s pass. If you see a Rob Kearney pass the ball in the wild, please contact the relative authorities (me) immediately.
Some extra stuff
Judging by their official squad announcement, I should have listed “graphic design” as one of South Africa’s major weaknesses in last week’s newsletter.
Simon Thomas of Wales Online gives a little background on Josh Navidi, the son of an Iranian wrestler who is preparing to captain Wales for the first time.
Georgina Robinson of the Sydney Morning Herald highlights the fact that the three most important coaching jobs in Australian rugby could be occupied by Kiwis by the end of the year.
The Melbourne Rebels will be hoping for some magic from their new signing, Harry Potter.
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