BATTLE OF THE BREAKDOWN
Leavy and Co facing a ground war with Scotland
THIS has been an awfully civilised week so far. Consider that three months ago, it was predicted that the newest grudge match in the Six Nations would be Ireland versus Scotland.
This was based on testy relationships between the players in the Pro14, and in particular between Glasgow and Munster.
The improvements in Scottish rugby were also given as a reason for this hot new rivalry: the Scots have never felt inferior to Ireland, even through two decades of turmoil as they struggled with professionalism and their standards slipped. Now that they are on the up at long last, they would not bend the knee to anyone.
But the biggest cause of the friction, it was forecast, would be the voting for the 2023 World Cup. Ireland’s doomed bid crashed and burned, but the decision of the Scots not to vote for their neighbours caused much annoyance among the blazers on whose watch the Irish campaign floundered.
That never sounded convincing, and the evidence suggests the Irish players couldn’t care less about how one group of committee men voted, and if their decisions made another group of committee men cross.
There is none of the edge in the lead-in to Saturday’s game that was detectable ahead of the Welsh match. Now that is a rivalry in which there is a genuine dash of spite.
But all is peaceful as we await the arrival of Scotland.
Their hooker Stuart McInally was yesterday praising his opposite number at the weekend, Rory Best.
‘He’s a brilliant player,’ said the 27-year-old, who only converted to hooker from the back-row at the age of 23, and started his first game there in 2015.
‘He’s someone who’s been at the top of his game so long and has achieved so much, I’m really excited to get up against him in the scrum if I’m picked to start again.’
There was never much danger of Ireland lighting the kindling and setting the build-up ablaze, either, with Simon Easterby put before the microphone at the team base in Maynooth, Co Kildare.
Snow was heaped in spots around Carton House, and the hangover from last week’s extraordinary weather meant the team trained on Monday at the national sports campus in Abbotstown, west Dublin.
The ongoing thaw means they should compete their final training session tomorrow on the pitches at the team hotel, and any lingering slush will be blown away by one area of the game in which Schmidt and Easterby will drill Ireland relentlessly: the breakdown.
The quality of Scottish play in this area against England was consistently high, with Hamish Watson and their captain John Barclay simply outstanding.
It is also the part of the game in which Ireland have excelled this season. The winning of the game will lie with the team that wins the breakdown battles throughout the match.
England couldn’t live with Scotland in that aspect of the Calcutta Cup, while Ireland battered Wales there time and again.
The battle between Dan Leavy and Barclay tantalises, and should be as good as anything we’ve seen yet this spring.
The latter’s status has soared in Scotland after how he played against England, and the quality of their loose forwards is something that Scottish rugby has traditionally taken great pride in.
Leavy, though, has been excellent since injury to Josh van der Flier gave him his chance. He has a hard streak to him that will relish what the Scots bring. Something’s going to give. ‘I think they were very effective at either stopping England’s momentum or turning the ball over and were pretty disruptive at the contact area,’ said Easterby.
‘It’s about us being really clinical when we’ve got the ball, making sure that we don’t allow those threats to get in over the ball.
‘Players like Barclay, Hamish Watson, McInally [are] all guys that are real threats if we allow our ball-carriers to get isolated.’
The Welsh showed in the first round of this championship that Scotland’s entire game-plan is ruined if they cannot secure ball on terms they prefer.
If possession is slowed or turned over, Finn Russell’s influence is curtailed and the speed in their backline cannot be let loose.
‘I guess it goes back to the setpiece, we’ll start by pressurising that and then everything has a knock-on effect,’ said Easterby.
‘Hopefully it’s a positive effect for us and a negative for them. Don’t get me wrong, the contact area and how we enter the tackle situation, how smart we are there, all of those things will have an impact on the quality and delivery of the ball for any team.
‘We know how important that is for the likes of Finn Russell, [Peter] Horne outside him and Huw Jones, all guys who, when they are given time and space, are capable of opening a team up.’
Conversely, though, Gregor Townsend will realise that Ireland’s defence has looked creaky when attacked, especially out wide. Should they win quick ball at rucks, it is certain that Russell will try and set Stuart Hogg and Sean Maitland off running.
‘At times in this campaign we’ve defended really well,’ said Easterby, ‘but there have been times when guys have gone and done things out of the system and that’s created some opportunities for the opposition.
‘So, it’s about staying connected on both sides of the ball and making sure we don’t give them those little windows to get into the game.’