SHIFTING UP THE GEARS
Ireland set for strong finish as Carbery finds mojo
JOE SCHMIDT has just finished up his postmatch press duties and is heading down the tunnel at Murrayfield when he spots Conor Murray strolling out towards the bus.
‘What is that?’ he says, pointing to Murray’s shoes. The Ireland scrumhalf is decked out in his post-match suit…and a bright pair of white sneakers.
Ireland’s head coach has always been big on small details.
He would have taken note that Johnny Sexton was clobbered on four separate occasions before eventually leaving the action after 24 minutes.
Schmidt wryly observed that Allan Dell was so intent on smashing Sexton that he failed to notice Ireland’s most dangerous strike runner lurking on his inside shoulder.
Dell got a good shot on Ireland’s No10 but the Scotland prop left a big hole for Jacob Stockdale to exploit.
It all went according to plan, but Sexton never recovered from that treatment and Joey Carbery was summoned from the bench.
That’s a dilemma for Schmidt, going forward. Sexton’s strength is his ability to take the ball to the line and bring others into the game.
However, it leaves a 33-year-old with an extensive injury profile vulnerable to big hits from firedup for-wards.
Carbery had a shaky start in Murrayfield. Ireland were leading 12-3 when he entered the fray. Cool heads were needed at that stage. Throwing a wild pass from static ruck ball was not in the game plan. Finn Russell read it a mile away and soon Sam Johnson was charging across the Irish try-line and the hosts were back in the game.
Russell and Carbery come from the same class of attacking out-half.
Russell, the free-spirited Racing 92 No10 and good comrade of Simon Zebo, can mix the sublime with the ridiculous.
‘We try to bring a lot of line speed to our defence,’ Russell observed.
‘For a 10, if you’ve forwards outside you, a team is shooting up and you can see that early on so that is a trigger for myself. Either pick him off or get him to turn back inside. Luckily enough, he threw the pass. That was one of the mistakes and he will learn from it. I think the next time he doesn’t throw that pass.’ Ronan O’Gara once spent a week in the Ireland camp when they were based in New York ahead of their meeting with the US Eagles back in the summer of 2017. Working under Schmidt for the week, O’Gara made the observation that Carbery could be as good as Beauden Barrett. The former Munster No10 was on pundit duty on Saturday afternoon and revealed that he got slagged off for making that comparison, but O’Gara stuck to his guns. He made the point that Carbery is only 23 and still learning the ropes. He is nowhere near his potential, yet.
Carbery’s virtuoso display for Munster against Gloucester last month was Barrett-like in his application.
For all Carbery’s attacking exploits, Schmidt will be most pleased by the way he composed himself after that early tactical clanger in Edinburgh.
‘He was a bit ruffled, especially after the intercept,’ said Schmidt.
‘You know what? That is good growth. That is good opportunity to say, “I am under pressure here now, the team is under pressure, I’ve got to stay in the game and I’ve still got to make good decisions and I’ve still to boss the team well”.’
Bossing the game is something that will come to Carbery with more exposure at this level. The one thing he has in abundance is explosive footwork and Carbery used it to devastating effect in the lead-up to Ireland’s third try, which ultimately proved the match-winner.
The power to break the tackles of Dell and Rob Harley was eye- catching, but it was the composure to find Earls on the run which was most impressive.
‘The ball felt like it was in the air for an eternity,’ Carbery recalled.
‘I knew Earlsy was going to be there so I kind of just chucked it out and hoped that he’d get it, and he did.
‘He’s a great man to stick with the play and follow through, so I kind of had an inkling he was going to be there.’
It’s worth remembering that Carbery’s break arose from a wild pass from Sean O’Brien into no-man’s land, a common theme during a committed if error-strewn performance from the visitors.
It was not a perfect performance by any means but Ireland needed a win after the trauma of that England humbling in Dublin.
It should stand to Ireland in the months ahead as they set down foundations for the big trip to Japan in seven months’ time.
‘It will be great, the experience is second to none,’ added Carbery.
‘You can’t do that in training, you can’t get that sort of pressure. So, I suppose all we can do now is get the positives from that. Try and build on it, the key is that there was different combinations chucked out there, a few injuries here and there.
‘Everyone stepped up really well. It’s a tough place to come and get a result.’
A rest week is now on the horizon and a chance for this squad to grab a well-earned breather.
A trip to Rome to face the struggling Azzurri is the assignment at the end of the month before the ragged French arrive in Dublin on the second Sunday of March.
Win those and Ireland could be heading to Cardiff on the final weekend of the championship with an outside chance of securing the title.
They should be up to full speed by then, as is usually the case for Ireland squads under Schmidt. The longer they spend in camp, the sharper they tend to become.
‘We have tended to be a bit slow starting,’ Schmidt observed.
They will need to suit up for the rest of the championship.