Aki’s red clouds win but Irish response delights Schmidt
IRELAND already had one foot in the quarter-final when Bundee Aki was issued with his marching orders by referee Nic Berry after 29 minutes of this win. The emphatic way they completed the job will give Joe Schmidt and his men comfort as they travel north to Tokyo today.
They won’t be fooled by this result, however. Samoa were the perfect opponent for Schmidt’s Ireland who need to deliver the game of their lives this coming Saturday (11.15) against New Zealand.
Ill-disciplined and terrible at the lineout, Samoa were ripe for picking off by a pressure-based team who, even with 14 men, were able to dominate possession and territory.
Ireland managed seven tries and had another pair ruled out by the television match official. Their style of play won’t win them many neutral fans, but they’re in the knockouts now and winning is all that matters.
Whether it will be enough when they step up in class this weekend remains to be seen, but this was an improved display with their Lions all standing up to be counted.
Skills
Again, they started well and, while their skills let them down midway through the first half, the red card led to an increase in tempo and intent and a much better secondhalf display than we witnessed against Russia and Japan.
It was a pity it took Aki’s exit to sharpen things up, because his offence came on the back of a loose Robbie Henshaw pass that caused a bit of chaos that led to the Connacht centre connecting with Ulupano Seuteni’s jaw.
Berry had little choice, indeed he had an excellent match, and Ireland were forced to play for 50 minutes with 14 men.
Tries from Rory Best, Tadhg Furlong and Johnny Sexton had put them in a winning position with Jack Lam’s score for Samoa narrowing the gap, but whatever life the Islanders wanted to get out of the dismissal Ireland sucked it out of them.
Although the Samoans love a tackle, they didn’t want to be forced into making 190 of them through Ireland’s ball-protection and relentless aggression.
Down a back, Ireland weren’t interested in going around their opponents. Through them, slowly and surely, did just fine.
They escaped without injury, securing the bonus point through the imperious Sexton by half-time before Jordan Larmour, CJ Stander and Andrew Conway crossed to build a nice score. That meant they could watch Japan versus Scotland without their pool fate hanging over them.
And it meant that they leave Fukuoka in better shape than when they arrived 10 days ago.
“I really liked the start again. I think we’ve started really well in all four games, we just haven’t continued it and I felt this time we continued it pretty well,” Schmidt said of the performance.
“It was disappointing to concede the try that we did. The Samoans muscled up really well for it. I thought we were tactically relatively solid once we lost Bundee because it would have been very hard to play with a huge amount of width.
“I felt the fourth try that we got was really effectively done after getting the maul going then Johnny shooting down the short side. Jordan Larmour creating the try for Johnny prior to that.
“In the second half, it probably wasn’t great to watch but it was comforting to know that we were in the right part of the pitch and we went to a couple of strong points for us with the maul and the scrum and carried close, with a man down that’s inevitably probably the strong suit that you’re going to play to.”
They will review it and move on with a mixed bag of a pool campaign adding to a confusing 2019 to date. If they win the quarterfinal, all of that will go out the window.
To do so, they’ll need the pack to back up the levels of physicality they showed here, with Murray and Sexton controlling things in the same way.
They’ll probably need more spark from their backs, but without Aki they were forced to rejig with Jordan Larmour finishing the game at inside centre alongside Keith Earls, it’s no wonder they were at sixes and sevens.
Getting the job done was the important thing.
In Samoa, they had the most obliging opposition they could have wished for.
There’s no one else left in the tournament who will afford them such generosity, things are about to step up several notches and we’ll find out where they are then.