He may have the sublety of Crocodile Dundee, but Jones has a point about Ireland
JUST when Warren Gatland has appeared to stick his antagonistic comments back in the holster, a new gun slinger crashes through the swinging doors of the Six Nations Saloon. With all the subtlety of Crocodile Dundee, Eddie Jones has started some pre match sledging with his ‘Aussie Rules’ comment about Ireland’s play under Joe Schmidt.
To be fair, the England coach certainly has a point − and considering the antipodean quartet of international coaches in these islands probably a more appropriate reference than Gaelic football.
My banter with some of my England friends after our kick and chase victory at Aviva last season was ‘you might beat us at rugby but we will always beat you at Gaelic football’.
Anthony Watson was especially picked out for a bombardment of box kicks. And with Watson most likely to start again on the English right wing it was a timely addition of pressure on Schmidt to play more ball in hand rather than on boot.
It is fair to say that England have played the best rugby in the last two Six Nations yet Ireland have been double champions. Results 2 Entertainment 0.
While Jones has pushed England’s style more towards the result end of the scale, Schmidt is under serious pressure to move Ireland in the opposite direction and find a way to get Ireland averaging the four-tries-a-game quota you generally need to beat a side like the All Blacks.
No major overhaul is required to reinstate Ireland as a try scoring side – only a leap of faith.
Schmidt is known for his attention to detail and when you hear that he has been telling the Irish players ‘they are not an offloading team’ then that signals that either Irish players don’t have the ability to off-load or that there is an easier way to score tries than off-loading. Ireland’s relative try drought cancels the latter theory. Therefore it must be skills.
Off-loading does not need to entail an all-singing, all-dancing game as New Zealand have shown consistently. In fact, New Zealand really only dominated one area in the World Cup – the off-load.
They were consistently beaten at the breakdown and dominated in the scrum and maul area. Even possession and territory stood for nothing. Just look back at the shellacking they were given by the Springboks in the semi-final yet their simple off-loading game got them home. With defences so well drilled and poachers able to slow ball considerably − keeping the ball off the ground is the easiest way by far to slash a defence than bludgeoning through phases.
Ireland managed seven line breaks against Wales yet only one try was scored. New Zealand would certainly have converted a minimum of four of those into tries.
Just remember Jonny Sexton’s line break around the 60th minute. He faced two defenders with Earls wide on his right and Zebo trailing him – the first time I have seen an Irish player trail the ball carrier in some time. Earls held his defender wide on the wing so all Sexton had to do was an easy step back inside to hit the soft shoulder of the crossing defender. This would mean the defender had to stretch and was unable to hit Sexton hard or high on the ball. All Sexton needed to do was pump the legs in that tackle two or three times, keep his hands free and pop the ball up to the trailing Zebo to canter in 30 metres for a try.
Ridiculously simple. But no. A risky wide pass to Earls which a defender read and the simple try finish evaporated. The same happened just before half-time against Italy in November when Earls forced a wide pass when all he had to do was take a soft shoulder and pop to a trailing runner. But there was no trailing runner, as there hasn’t been since Tommy Bowe a few seasons ago.
To perfect the off-load game Ireland need to play with attackers lined touchline to touchline to stretch the English defensive line. They then need to identify the space where a strike runner can attack a soft shoulder and take a soak tackle. Then, most importantly, there has to be a trail runner some five metres behind to take the pop pass.
Ireland are doing all the basics as well as any side and defending better than just about anyone. Yet all that graft and winning of small margins means nothing in comparison to the lightning strike of a well-placed off-load.
Any professional is capable of playing an off-loading game. It took Ian McGeechan about two weeks to perfect our off-loading game in the early stages of the 1997 Lions tour. Now nearly 20 years of professional rugby and the coach thinks players can’t play an off loading game?
Watching the Ireland U20s against Wales in Donnybrook two weeks ago, I saw a master class of off-loading intuition. A newly strung together side off-loaded 17 times and got back into the game.
Ireland have passed a lot his Six Nations but with little effect. Against England, Ireland should ignore the Aussie sledger and note Watson’s travails under high balls.
However, they should also temper this with bringing the offload back from the annals of history to find an easier way to win test matches.