Ireland must be wary out sting in Scots’ tail
Joe’s men need plan for lethal loose trio
THERE will be a lot of talk this week about Scotland’s last win in Dublin, when they denied Ireland a Triple Crown in the final match at Croke Park in 2010.
Ireland were by far the superior team on paper, with six starting Test Lions from the previous year’s tour to South Africa versus Scotland’s none, but were strangely flat on the day, allowing the visitors to snatch victory courtesy of a late Dan Parks penalty.
One of the key features of that encounter (aside from the 12 penalty concessions that helped Parks amass his gameclinching 18 points), was the performance of the Scottish backrow who dominated the lauded Irish trio of Stephen Ferris, David Wallace and Jamie Heaslip.
Scotland’s unit of Kelly Brown at No6, openside John Barclay and No8 Johnny Beattie were known as ‘The Killer Bs’ and were unquestionably the strongest area of that Scottish outfit (although one that was unable to propel the team into tournament challenging positions over the few seasons they were first choice together with Croke Park arguably their finest hour).
Still, even allowing for the hype attaching itself to the catchy moniker, that backrow was a formidable, extremely balanced combination — the traditional, hard-tackling enforcer Brown complementing the expert scavenging of Barclay, with Beattie providing all-round footballing skills in between.
Scotland have a long tradition of quality backrows and ‘The Killer Bs’ drew comparisons with another storied triumvirate from the 1980s, John Jeffrey, Finlay Calder and Derek White — who carried a similarly defined balance in their duties and all made the successful Lions tour to Australia in 1989 before helping Scotland to the Grand Slam the following year.
The current unit of blindside and captain Barclay, openside Hamish Watson and No8 Ryan Wilson have not yet earned a nickname but, following their exploits against England in Murrayfield two weekends ago, they are now drawing comparisons with those great backrows of yore.
While out-half Finn Russell and irrepressible centre Huw Jones grabbed the headlines following the emphatic 25-13 humbling of England, the backrow were sensational — tormenting Eddie Jones’ men at the breakdown (the Scots won 13 turnovers) and mowing down white jerseys at every turn.
So dominant were they, that England have since been embroiled in debate over the make-up of their own backrow, where the use of Chris Robshaw at seven instead of a specialist openside and positioning converted second row Courtney Lawes at No6 has come under intense scrutiny.
However, the curve ball here is that Scotland boss Gregor Townsend and his forwards coach Dan McFarlane have opted to eschew the traditional backrow balance of the past in favour of playing Barclay and Watson as two opensides in the interests of winning the breakdown battle.
Realising that he does not have the bulk at his disposal to match the giant packs of the likes of England (and Ireland), Townsend has opted for mobility and specialist tenacity to enforce superiority at the rucks — the facet of play that most characterises modern rugby (there were 213 rucks in Scotland’s win over England, 197 in Ireland’s win over Wales).
It is a selection policy that has worked well for teams in the past, notably Australia who used opensides George Smith and Phil Waugh in tandem through the mid-2000s and more recently have enjoyed breakdown superiority by picking No7 specialists David Pocock and Michael Hooper on their flanks.
Ireland have never really gone down this path, save by circumstance (such as when injury issues saw Niall Ronan and Shane Jennings fill the flanker jersey in the loss to Australia at Brisbane in 2010).
Instead, Ireland have shared breakdown focus across the backrow in recent years — the likes of Peter O’Mahony and Jamie Heaslip mucking in to help out openside Sean O’Brien in the knowledge that he needed to be freed up for ball-carrying duties also, the primary strength of the Tullow man’s game.
With Josh van der Flier injured, Ireland are missing their primary ground specialist and O’Mahony, No8 CJ Stander and Dan Leavy have been bearing the breakdown responsibilities between them — and doing well, achieving a 99 per cent ruck success against the Welsh when the visiting backrow could make little impact.
However, Scotland will provide a serious test of those breakdown credentials. While Ireland’s flankers O’Mahony and Leavy are both around the 6ft3in mark, Barclay and Watson are lower to the ground and rapid over it.
They will be voracious in their pursuit of turnover ball in Lansdowne Road this Saturday and in their attempts to disrupt the flow of Ireland ball to Conor Murray and his halfback partner Johnny Sexton.
Ireland’s capacity to meet this assault and make their own presence felt on Scottish ruck ball will have a massive bearing on who emerges victorious.
The success of Joe Schmidt’s men in their run of three victories thus far has been based around extended periods of possession (69 per cent possession and 75 per cent territory against Wales) and impeccable discipline on the back of it.
Scotland will make it their mission to upset those plans and in Barclay and Watson, they have the firepower to carry it out.
They may not yet have a title to match the ‘The Killer Bs’ but this unit is garnering just as menacing a reputation and you feel that Ireland will have to take the sting out of this Scottish backrow if they are to take their 100 per cent record to Twickenham next week.