Long week looms for awful Ireland as focus turns to Scots
PARK Ireland’s awfulness for a moment. This is why it’s so important to give Tier 2 nations a crack. In the last five weeks Georgia have played Scotland, England, Wales and now Ireland.
Even a World Cup would throw up an easier pool. Typically they wrap up each of those tournaments in better nick than they started, wondering how good they could be if they had regular opposition like that. Same here. They look a lot better now than when they started in Edinburgh.
Ireland are the polar opposite. Andy Farrell mixed it up and gave lots of time to those on the periphery, and came away with the square root of nothing. If he had hoped they would lift the standard against poorly-rated opponents then it was a bad day for the coach.
On a lovely mild afternoon the case of Finlay Bealham was a good illustration of a good walk spoiled. A tight-head by trade, his versatility opens doors for him to more caps. It would have been more useful to leave him on for the full 80 minutes, and give Cian Healy a day off. The problem was that the discomfort was widespread. Help was needed.
Resolve
When this was still a contest after the hour mark it was as if the penny dropped for the home team. This wasn’t what they had scripted. These fellas are refusing to go away. Worse, they are enjoying it. And with that realisation Ireland’s game got looser, their skills looked ropey, their resolve looked weak.
As the game rounded the final bend Ireland had conceded nine penalties, and had no control on the game. They had also conceded the best try of the contest, a brilliant effort finished by Giorgi Kveseladze. With the clock in the red, the same player smashed CJ Stander as the No 8 carried off the back of a close-in scrum. He had a great day out. There were no positives for Ireland. Scotland, next weekend’s opponents in the Aviva, will fancy their chances against a side low on confidence. Decent in the first half, at the end of which they lead 20-7 with tries by Billy Burns and Hugo Keenan, they got worse the longer the second half wore on.
Burns had to be replaced by Ross Byrne, so if his condition worsens then Farrell has selection issues at 10 as well as concerns about morale. His players looked thoroughly miserable.
Whatever about the set-piece, Ireland’s phase play is now in real trouble. Predictable and onedimensional, Georgia were not overstretched in dealing either with men carrying or kicking in behind them.
There are two fundamental problems here. Firstly, Ireland are playing a lot of rugby off nine, which is fine if you have either very powerful carriers or shapes you can throw to stall the defence.
When Ireland are at full strength up front their carrying ability is good, but the shape has very little going for it. The extent of the decoy element thrown at the defence is to play behind the first runner. That’s pretty much it. So the receiver is easy to spot and easy to smash.
Against Georgia all eight starting forwards carried some ball, but James Ryan was very quiet on that front, with four. CJ Stander, on 24, was the go-to man. So Georgia went and got him. The second problem is that when their runners are getting no traction the whole operation slows down, and they become even easier to pick off. The whooping and hollering coming from the Georgian defence in the second half is a soundtrack Farrell will want to switch off in his head.
The Georgians warmed to the task and came out for the second half fired up and focused. Over the course of that long, drawn out and fruitless 40 minutes, the home team looked stressed. Their sole return was a penalty from Ross Byrne, to match one from Tedo Abzhandadze.
A long week looms ahead.
IRELAND – J Stockdale; H Keenan, C Farrell, S McCloskey,
K Earls (S Daly 62); B Burns (R Byrne 46), C Murray (K Marmion 57); F Bealham (C Healy 57), R Herring (D Heffernan 66),
A Porter (J Ryan h-t), I Henderson, J Ryan (Q Roux 62), T Beirne, CJ Stander, W Connors (P O’Mahony 62).
GEORGIA – S Matiashvili; A Tabutsadze, G Kveseladze, M Sharikadze (D Niniashvili 66), T Mchedlidze (D Tapladze 66); T Abzhandadze, V Lobzhanidze (M Alania 73); M Nariashvili (L Kaulashvili 50), S Mamukashvili (G Chkoidze 9), B Gigashvili (G Melikdze 61), N Cheishvili (G Javahkia 61), L Jaiani (G Melikidze 63), B Saginadze, T Jalagonia, B Gorgadze (M Gacechiladze 62).
REF – M Raynal (France).