IT’S OVER TO YOU NOW, JOE
Schmidt must dig deep into his bag of tricks as crucial year begins with massive bump
FROM here to there will be some journey now. In a year of predicted bounty for Irish rugby, few expected the odyssey to start at such a dispiriting point. All kinds of glories were tipped to come Ireland’s way in this World Cup year. Eighty minutes of relentless pain brought a reminder that fancied teams double as targets for everyone else.
While World Cup semi-finals are anticipated as a minimum come the autumn, preceded by a successful defence of the Six Nations, England have plans of their own.
They hung on two principles here: target Robbie Henshaw, and be aggressive from first whistle to last. On both points they succeeded, and Ireland were eventually torn asunder.
There have not been too many days like this one under the extraordinary leadership of Joe Schmidt. The passageways from the stands to the exits were flooded once Henry Slade slid over for the fourth try, capitalising brilliantly on a plainly desperate pass from Johnny Sexton.
Supporters slipped out into the dark and cold of a February night understanding that with heightened status comes heightened risks. If Ireland are to regain the levels they reached and maintained through all of 2018, they must trek from the sore and lonely place where they recover this morning.
Good teams have bad days, and it is in their power to control the reaction to such an emphatic loss. But their opponents, starting with Scotland on Saturday, now know that even Ireland’s vaunted machine can be made to malfunction.
It was the manner in which England did it that was so shocking, and the effect it had on Ireland’s leaders.
Long before the end, Schmidt’s men were without direction and inspiration.
There have been enough good days to excuse a bad day, but the year suddenly seems long and fraught.
Opponents like Scotland, Wales, France and South Africa will watch and learn.
That will be Ireland’s salvation, too. The Schmidt project has been a success because of his coaching brilliance but also the willingness of his team to absorb that wisdom. It will be a humbling week back at the books in the Irish camp.
When Keith Earls broke out of the Irish defensive line after less than 90 seconds, he was obeying one of those hair-trigger impulses that distinguish elite athletes from the rest of us.
Time it right and he would be under the English posts in seconds; misread it and the bravura of the visitors would seem justified.
Earls got his timing wrong and Jonny May was soon surrounded by a bloom of white shirts in a corner of a quietly stunned Lansdowne Road.
This would only be the start of the traumas visited on the Irish back three. Tom Curry later floored Earls with a late tackle that drew a yellow card and could have brought red. Then Maro Itoje, under the pretence of contesting a high ball, landed a knee in Earls’ midriff.
As well as obeying a tactical order to plague Robbie Henshaw and the Irish wings with steepling kicks, English players looked desperate to prove their hardness. Eddie Jones plays on a weakness in the English rugby tradition for yeoman toughness, as if a rugby force with their exhaustive resources should be reliant on blunt force to such a degree.
That explains Itoje’s nasty challenge, and the wild fervour of Curry as well.
The usual advantage of facing an opponent prone to unchecked passions is that they are easily worked out; withstand the physical onslaught and there will be little to back it up. But England had one play they were intent on playing again and again, and it had Robbie Henshaw at its centre.
By the end of the first quarter Ireland were in control, even if they trailed 7-3 until the 25th minute, but the English obsession with exposing the hosts’ new full back survived any pressure the home team exerted.
Ireland controlled most of the possession and they were probing the English defence in ways Jones and his staff might not have expected.
John Mitchell, England’s defence coach, expected to be bored but Ireland probed them mostly by keeping the ball rather than raining kicks down on the English back three.
It was the English that booted the ball on instinct, peppering the harassed Earls but keeping Henshaw centred in their sights. It worked, too, stressing the Irish defence in a way the visitors couldn’t with ball in hand.
Yet it was a dinked kick through rather than a hoisted garryowen that brought them unexpectedly back into the game. Perhaps the recast Irish back three and their newness as a unit contributed to the confusion, but Jacob Stockdale’s basic failure to tame Elliot Daly’s kick eventually allowed England’s full back to touch down.
This was an inversion of what we had expected. Mitchell’s comment prompted some half-hearted clutching of pearls in some quarters, but his analysis wasn’t unreasonable. Ireland are a side whose success relies to a great extent on highly patterned play, and there is no shame in that.
But England stole an Irish strength on the opening weekend of the Six Nations and turned it against Joe Schmidt’s men.
A seven-point advantage at the interval justified Jones’ tactics, and it made for a cold and subdued break for the home supporters. This was supposed to be the point of departure on a year of unprecedented adventuring for Irish rugby.
Big English talk did not ruffle a side who had beaten New Zealand mere weeks ago. But when it was accompanied by plans and a big effort, then Ireland did have a problem.
Solving it depended on more than shoring up Henshaw. He wasn’t undone by individual mistakes, but was simply obliged to spend too much of his time shuttling backwards dealing with a hail of English kicks.
Ireland were struggling in other ways, too, as enormous ball carriers came hurtling repeatedly out of the opposing ranks. England gained ground with each trundle, and dealing with them sapped energy and time throughout the second and third quarters.
Panic did not help Ireland hatch a rescue plan.
A team so widely admired for its serenity under pressure was flustered and edgy. The plan is the thing with Schmidt’s team, but it needs level heads for proper implementation.
Johnny Sexton and Conor Murray are the world-class pivots on which this team rely, but they could not bring the necessary authority in the face of ceaseless and frankly admirable English effort.
Still they came, hounding white shirts that left Ireland frazzled. When Slade scored his contentious first try with less than a quarter of an hour left, the dervishes looked to have got their reward.
One late incident captured the Irish mess. Poor passing by the half backs – a recurring weakness in this contest – sent yet another home attack into retreat.
Courtney Lawes, the abrasive English replacement, saw his opportunity and when Garry Ringrose was scrambling to deal with a pass in retreat, Lawes lined him up and halved him with a tackle. The centre was quickly penalised for not releasing the ball and Sexton scowled at Jerome Garces. The referee had done nothing wrong, though.
Ireland had wilted in the heat of English aggression. The year has taken a shocking, intriguing turn.