ANOTHER TWICKEN THE MAUL
Fogarty: I won’t call England an illegal scrummage side but our pack and set pieces are vital for momentum and we must avoid the chaos
IRELAND are vowing to avoid the set piece chaos at Twickenham that they got caught up in two years ago.
Andy Farrell’s side pulled away to claim a 32-15 victory when they last went to England’s back yard in 2022.
But it wasn’t comfortable, even after Charlie Ewels’ red card after 82 seconds for the hosts, and Ireland’s scrum struggled to cope.
Later, Jack Conan claimed that ref Mathieu Raynal apologised for some of his decisions as the visitors coughed up six penalties and a free-kick at scrum-time.
The sight of Andrew Porter and Tadhg Furlong becoming more and more visibly frustrated with England rival
Ellis Genge was one of the game’s main talking points at the time.
“Yeah, that was a huge disappointment,” said Ireland’s scrum coach John Fogarty (above).
“Our scrum wants to deliver for the team and momentum is huge in Twickenham – the energy that can be generated because of set piece, and scrum and maul will be big on their minds. So it was a big moment for us as a group. It was frustrating.
“England, when they get forward in the scrum, if they get any momentum at all, they’ll want to finish the scrum quite quickly.
“They’ll either walk around it or drop it on the floor and it forces a decision from the referee. I’m not going to call them an illegal scrummaging side. There’s a rich history of scrum, and culture of scrum, in England.
“I think the referee got a few things wrong that day. Since then we’ve built a pretty good scrum.
“Again, there’ve been disappointments but through the campaign we’ve learned along the way and we’re in a good spot now.”
Fogarty believes the Ireland pack learned a big lesson that day. He recalled there was “a lot of chaos on the field” that day. And he added: “We
were rattled. We were trying to figure out what we needed to do to stem the flow a little bit, but it was an unbelievably frustrating day. But, you go away and take so much from it. The main thing was around how were dealing with the chaos of it. We talk about having clarity on our plan but at the same time having that calmness to deliver intent.
“The scrum is going to be huge. We’re preparing for a massive battle and Nika [Amashukeli], the referee, he’s got a job on his hands because it’s a huge occasion.”