Farrell will not let defeat go to waste
Shock loss will be used to inspire Ireland’s comeback
THIS is the grimmer side of adversity.
Andy Farrell has used defeats to make Ireland great, finding brilliance in two muddled championships to forge the best team in the world.
And the manner in which the team responded to that creasing quarter-final loss to New Zealand in the World Cup had looked, up until yesterday evening, a staggering example of emerging improved from defeat. Now, there is the fresh setback to use as a force for self-improvement.
As England players galloped around Twickenham elated, it would have been hard to find the slivers to inspire more selfimprovement.
This was a sickening defeat, but a deserved one.
Ireland were out-played by a side who looked a coming force. It put one in mind, in fact, of the game that helped transform Farrell’s reign. That came in March 2021 when they hammered England, 32-18, in an empty Aviva Stadium.
The visitors were nothing like the force that Ireland are today, but it was nonetheless the signal victory required to convince the public, and the players, that Farrell’s ways could work.
What followed was two-and-ahalf years of almost unchecked brilliance. It’s doubtful England have the quality to muster that kind of run, but what they did manage yesterday was a performance that mixed the fierce blitz defence Felix Jones has been hired to coach, and a fluency in attack that they have barely shown since Steve Borthwick was appointed.
Perhaps there is a transformative effect from unexpected victory in a match between these two teams. Borthwick may hope so, but one suspects he will simply give thanks for a hard-earned, merited victory, and recognise the buffer it puts between him and his critics for another week, at least.
And he might give silent thanks for his opposite number’s bold decision to persist with a split in his replacements between six forwards and two backs.
It meant the Ireland bench could not offer a game-changing impact once two backs, Calvin Nash and then Ciarán Frawley, were lost to head-injury replacements.
Forwards flooded the pitch, but they entered the theatre of battle that best suited England, who for all of their expansive ambitions, and the promise they showed in trying to play a more daring game, wanted the final quarter played in tight, ugly confines.
For a victory adorned with some fine home attacking, its spirit was to be found in the prosaic aspects of England’s past, because Ireland couldn’t force them to play on the breath-taking terms they favour.
Ronan Kelleher and Ryan Baird were the pick of the subs, the former stabilising the line-out and combining for one brilliant turnover with the latter.
Baird’s case to start against Scotland, at the expense of Peter O’Mahony, is near unanswerable.
But even the best efforts of this Leinster duo couldn’t force the game open in a way that Ireland wanted. It was left to the toiling hosts, depicted in some analysis this week as a lumbering panto giant, to launch the desperado late attack that ended with Marcus Smith scything over the winning drop goal.
After James Lowe’s second try, scored in spite of the back-line losses, the match was taking on the contours of last year’s roundfour win in Murrayfield, when Ireland prevailed after a bolshy showing from the hosts, and in the face of a spiralling injury crisis.
There was no repeat here, despite a handful of marvellous Irish showings.
The pick of those was Jamison Gibson-Park. He looked as unsettled as some of his team-mates after England’s roaring first quarter, but by the end, he had put in a brilliant showing.
He looked in control at scrumhalf until Frawley’s injury meant he was shifted to the right wing, where he defended stoutly while also doubling up on No9 duties with Conor Murray on occasion.
A number of players have improved to world-class standard under Farrell; Hugo Keenan, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Beirne and Caelan Doris the most obvious, but none have hit the level of influence now wielded by Gibson-Park.
Beirne comes close, and this was a barn-burner of a display from him, given what he had to do.
England laid waste to the Irish line-out at times, while their supercharged pack made the impact zones fierce.
Beirne dealt with that and still thrived with one pilfer of an English ball as they got ready to batter the Irish line, a testament to his wits and athleticism.
Elsewhere, standard-setters saw their influence oscillate, exemplified by Bundee Aki. At times he was unplayable, at others he was loose in his discipline or harried into rash decision-making.
Doris, like Aki, was obviously a prime target for English players, while he also had to deal with having the captaincy thrust upon him when O’Mahony was sent to the sin-bin.
Charitable interpretations of that card paint O’Mahony as effectively helpless; what else could he do, but go off his feet and slow an English attack that pulsed with danger?
But he looked frazzled for much of the game. He is a prime line-out influence and that set-piece was picked apart, collapsing back into the doubts that haunted it following the World Cup after three good rounds of the championship.
O’Mahony also struggled with
the breakdown battles as dictated by England, and if dropping his captain would be a headline-grabbing call by Farrell, the coach can’t ignore what Baird has to offer for much longer.
Ireland’s history is too meagre to allow anyone sniff at championships, and what was learned above all in London last night was how hard it is to win a Grand Slam; there’s a reason the Six Nations clean sweep hasn’t been done in successive seasons.
But the prospect of a championship against Scotland at home next Saturday remains an enticing one.
And the Farrell project is no more threatened by this defeat than it was by the World Cup loss to New Zealand.
Absorbing disappointment and rebounding is a proven trait of this group under this coach.
They may well do it again, but one suspects hard lessons were learned in the swirling west London night, about bench splits, about some veteran warriors, and about the capacity of great historical forces to show their might.
Putting that experience to proper use is the job now, against a Scottish side that should be humbled but will come to Dublin with their usual, inexplicable, levels of self-regard.