Time for Farrell to put own stamp on things
A year on from their Tokyo nightmare, Ireland coach has a unique window to bring change
MONDAY marks the 12-month anniversary of a day no Irish player involved will ever forget, no matter how hard they try. The disastrous World Cup quarter-final performance against New Zealand that brought the Joe Schmidt era to an end, ushering in the reign of Andy Farrell in inauspicious circumstances.
There is an image of the two men sitting side by side in the coaching box in the Tokyo Stadium that night that is suspended in time. One haunted by the way his carefully constructed regime came crashing down around him, the other wondering what he’s going to do with the rubble.
A year on, we’ve barely got a chance to see what he had planned despite the fact we’re a quarter of the way through this World Cup cycle already.
Finally, the coach has finally got his hands back on a group of players that looks very different to the team that lost to the All Blacks.
Of the 35 players named by Farrell for the Six Nations finale against Italy and France, only 20 went to the World Cup.
Ronan Kelleher and Caelan Doris were capped in the spring, while Hugo Keenan, Shane Daly, Jamison Gibson-Park, Will Connors, Ed Byrne, Ryan Baird and James Lowe are all likely to make their debuts in the coming weeks.
With six matches in seven weeks, the coach has a unique window to put his own stamp on this team.
Despite the poor performance in defeat to England that followed wins over Scotland and Wales, winning the Six Nations remains a target for Ireland.
But with the World Cup seedings now decided, the Autumn Nations Cup affords the coach a chance to start building his own squad and developing a style of play for the remainder of the cycle.
The mental challenge
Ireland produced a deeply worrying performance in their defeat to England, with familiar issues exposed by the World Cup finalists who won the collisions and probed the back-field with huge success.
Farrell watched his team compound errors with errors, while his captain Johnny Sexton endured one of his toughest days in a green jersey.
“I had a really poor game, I didn’t recover from making a mistake that wasn’t really my fault,” Sexton told ‘The Good, The Bad and The Rugby’ podcast recently. “I let it affect me for 10 minutes and I think that affected me more because I was captain.”
Sexton’s issues echoed through the team and the problem for the coach is that it wasn’t a once-off.
The England performance had echoes of the two losses to the same opposition during 2019 as well as the Wales defeat in Cardiff and the Japan and New Zealand reversals at the World Cup.
Schmidt said his side were “a bit broken” in the aftermath of the Six Nations loss to Eddie Jones men in February of that year and almost two years later they don’t seem to have been put back together again.
‘We always need a team that’s hungry and willing to fight for their country’
“We dealt with it. We dealt with it,” he said of Twickenham.
“We know how that game unfolded and we know what we needed to fix. That was at the forefront of everyone’s mind coming back into camp. But have we dwelled on that? Not too much. Obviously we’ve learned the lessons.”
With performance coach Enda McNulty no longer part of the set-up, Farrell has taken it upon himself to restore the team’s belief.
What’s changed?
Farrell drew some criticism for sticking largely with the same group of players that had featured under Schmidt, but given he was part of the previous regime he was always going to favour evolution over revolution.
Still, those three matches showed some signs of the direction of travel his team will take in the coming years tactically.
According to analysis by Ruckie Analytics, Ireland became less reliant on their tight five forwards to carry the ball in 2020 and moved the ball wider where their back three were far more involved in the game.
While the quality of their play in both areas improved, their kicking, mauling and ruck-work all declined.
Out of touch, they became more reliant on the maul and at the same time less successful with it.
Part of the problem was a conservatism out of touch, perhaps brought about by the transition from Rory Best to Rob Herring and a change of caller to James Ryan that saw Ireland throw almost 80 per cent of their lineouts to either Ryan or Peter O’Mahony.
All of their tries either came from lineout or scrum ball from within the 22, which would indicate that they have room to improve on counter-attack and with their setpiece attack and attacking kicking game.
However, they were efficient when scoring – only once going over 10 phases before dotting down in contrast to their 2018 peak when they would often bed down in the opposition 22 for enormous sets before crossing the line.
Ireland still offload less than all other teams, while their runners rarely broke the defensive line.
Autumn may not be the best window to polish an attack, but there is certainly room for big improvements.
Aggression and adaptability
Ireland’s athletic profile has been brought into focus by the events of the last year and Farrell’s selection of young, powerful players has been notable.
If they can win more collisions in attack, then their wide-game will be more effective. While a dominant defence can create attacking opportunities.
Baird, who would surely have made his debut over the next fortnight, is exactly the type of player the coach wants to develop for the senior team; athletic and aggressive.
Before the England game, he brought Paul O’Connell into the set-up and it is understood there is a real determination to add an edge to Ireland’s play that has not been there for some time.
There is a sense behind the scenes that Schmidt’s desire for good discipline may have gone too far and that this team lacked the bite needed to succeed at the top level.
Recall that during the Six Nations Brian O’Driscoll said the pack lacked “that bit of dog” and, while they didn’t find it at Twickenham, there were signs they were willing to stand up to the dominant English leaders like Maro Itoje.
“Those are the attributes of any team that you need to see at the top level of international football,” Farrell said. “We always need a team that’s hungry and willing to fight for their country. We need smart players as well and that’s what we’re trying to develop.”
Farrell wants his team to be more adaptable on the pitch.
During lockdown, England fly-half George Ford revealed his side’s view that if they shut down Sexton they’d stop Ireland. Varying the point of attack is critical.
“There is a little bit of an evolution that needs to happen within our game,” the coach said. “One of our strengths is sticking to the plan, also one of our work-ons would be being adaptable in and around the plan, for our boys to see the whole picture.
“I’m not just talking about the generals of the team, I’m talking about everyone now to play with a vision, with an appetite to see things, to make good decisions and to be able to execute on those decisions,” he added.
“It’s something that we’ve started. It’s a long enough process but it’s something we’re going to stick to.”
Form versus experience
A first-time head coach, Farrell is selecting a team for just the fourth time next Tuesday and in doing so he must weigh up the struggle between form, experience and building a team for 2023.
His captain is 35, but he remains the best out-half in the country and the team’s dominant personality. His half-back partner Conor Murray has endured a tough year, but remains No 1 in the coach’s eyes.
Farrell must ask how his team can improve if there remains a core of undroppable players in the team.
He’d argue that he showed a ruthless streak by selecting Caelan Doris over Peter O’Mahony for the Scotland game, but the result – a vastly-improved impact from the Munster skipper when introduced – was a reminder that competition can sharpen even the most established player.
There is a balance to be struck for a coach who remains under pressure to produce results, while also trying to build a team.
He needs new leaders, with a younger age profile, like Garry Ringrose and James Ryan to take ownership of the team so he can build the team around them.
This intense window is the perfect time to make the required changes.