Easterby outlines plans to halt the French
Ireland’s defence coach is adjusting to the demands of his new full-time role
AS a defence coach still settling into a role that is becoming increasingly more important in the modern game, the last team you want to be preparing to face right now, is an all-singing, all-dancing French side, who have the ability to rip your best-laid plans to shreds in the blink of an eye.
For Simon Easterby, Sunday’s Six Nations clash is about as tough as it gets for the man in charge of designing a game-plan effective enough to nullify the threat of Antoine Dupont and Co.
Up until Paul O’Connell’s recent appointment, Easterby had been double-jobbing as Ireland’s forwards and defence coach, which, in hindsight was never really sustainable long-term, especially considering the demands on each of those particular jobs.
Of course, Easterby has been able to lean on Andy Farrell for support on the defensive side of things, but he has enough on his plate in terms of getting to grips with his first role as head coach.
Although John Fogarty’s area of expertise is the scrum, he had been lending a hand with the forwards in a more general sense, but the arrival of O’Connell to the backroom team has freed up Easterby to focus solely on defence.
Judging the 14-man defensive system on last week’s defeat to Wales is harsh, yet there were some glaring issues that will not have gone unnoticed by France.
Ireland’s first task on Sunday is to keep 15 players on the pitch for the full 80 minutes, and then they can go about implementing what Easterby will have worked on all week.
Stemming the French tide is a huge ask, particularly when you have Dupont, the best player in the world right now, running the show from scrum-half, with a scintillating talent in Matthieu Jalibert outside of him, and that’s before we mention the electric backthree which is likely to include flying winger Teddy Thomas.
On the flip side, if Ireland do manage to nullify the threat of Les Bleus, it will say a lot about the direction the defence is moving in under Easterby. “Probably like all other defence coaches you want to try and win the ball back, and if you can’t win the ball back, you want to slow opposition ball down,” Easterby (below) explains.
“I don’t think that’s any different to any other defensive coach. We’ll all have, I guess, slightly different tactics for individual games and potentially for individuals within those games.
“But essentially it’s about trying to win the ball back first and foremost, and being able to attack from opposition turning the ball over is often some of the best attack ball to have because it’s unstructured.
“They’re in a different mindset, they have to switch from attack to defence and I think that’s probably no different from any other team.
“Outside of that it’s making sure that you force the opposition to either commit more numbers to the contact or slow it down enough to give them no other option than to give the ball back in a different way.
“My philosophies are no different I’m sure to most defence coaches. You can package it in different ways and the players have a huge appetite for that part of the game so it’s not always difficult to motivate them.
“It’s such a big part of the game, sometimes you’re without the ball more than you’re with the ball.
Appetite
“From that end, the players have an appetite for that part of the game and they understand the rewards that are taken from having a good defence.” Having a mentor such as Farrell to bounce ideas off will be helpful for Easterby, but the 65-times-capped former Ireland international is mindful that the defence is very much his responsibility now.
“The defence is probably very close to what Andy had in place prior to me taking over last year anyway,” he maintains.
“It’s a continuous collaboration of thoughts. Ultimately, I’m the one who has to go and deliver it and the players are the ones that, like I said before, have the appetite to want to go and put it into practice. For me, it’s not difficult, it’s something I really enjoy. “It’s something I’ve got plenty of support with, not just within the coaching group but within the playing group. It’s a great part of the game.
“It’s maybe not all the fancy stuff that everyone likes to see but people understand the value of defence and the tactics behind it are very different to what they might have been 25 years ago.” Ireland’s discipline let them down at times during the defeat to Wales and while they weren’t helped by an overly fussy referee in Wayne Barnes, if they cough up another 11 penalties this weekend, they will find themselves in deep trouble.
It’s far too simplistic to say that should Ireland shut down Dupont, they will win, but at the same time, figuring out how to stop the outstanding 24-year-old is high in Easterby’s priority list this week.
“When you’ve got a nine like Dupont, if you can prevent the opposition getting that quick ball, prevent the offloads, take away the options in the way they want to attack, speed of ball, then someone like Dupont becomes less effective,” Easterby adds.
“So at times we did have an effect on the speed of ball in Paris (last autumn) but other times we probably gave them too many offloads, fallen off things and eventually they took advantage of some of our defence errors.
“Dupont is world-class, he makes France tick, they have got a number of very, very, very good players in their ranks as well so we also have to really focus on what we can prevent on the day but I think it is a team thing, it is a collective thing that allows us to negate France’s threat.
“If we focus on him only, then we offer space and opportunity to other players to get a strike on, but there is a combination of things that will allow him to not get the free run that he might get on other games from those playing against him.”