DIRE NEED TO CURE HANGOVER
It’s been a forgettable Six Nations for Schmidt but
‘A top-half finish would be a good Six Nations for us… if we could be in the top half that means we would have to be in front of three pretty good teams’
– Joe Schmidt, January 27
IT WAS in London at the end of January when Joe Schmidt said Ireland’s quest to win a third successive Six Nations might be a step too far. History was against it, no country ever managing a three in a row in a tournament that’s been existence since 1883.
However, as daunting as their February schedule was – a six-day turnaround between rounds one and two and away games in Paris and London – it is quite a comedown for Schmidt to have stumbled into March with his double champions cut adrift in fifth place.
Not since 1998 have Ireland experienced this sort of winless start to the championship, a wretched season where they wound up whitewashed, but the hope is home games in Dublin against traditional strugglers Italy and Scotland can salvage some pride. That would enable Schmidt to break even with a haul of five points from a possible 10 and hoist them back into the frame for that aspired-to top-half finish.
The coach could do with this sort of a winning conclusion. Having won 20 of his 26 initial Test matches in charge, a streak that included netting the country’s first back-to-back titles since 1949, last month’s underwhelming set of results come on the heels of October’s disappointing World Cup elimination to Argentina.
The last four-game run without a win cost Grand Slam coach Declan Kidney his job in April 2013, Ireland’s fifth-place Six Nations finish ushering in the Schmidt era. It will be interesting now to see how the New Zealander handles the challenge in the next fortnight of turning around his team’s struggles against opposition they are expected to beat.
The IRFU have traditionally demanded high Six Nations placings. It’s the tournament that reaps them most finance, with first-place finishes a factor in helping the union grow its international rugby income from €27.8million in 2013 to €36.7m last year.
However, this year’s pressure on results-forprizemoney isn’t acute. Unlike Kidney, whose contract was due to expire around the time he was let go, Schmidt is signed up for another 15 months and would be viewed by the IRFU as the coach they want to keep on board for much longer than that, not someone to hold a grudge against for delivering one bad Six Nations campaign.
Success has provided Schmidt with wriggle room to absorb this year’s failure, but it will be intriguing how he reacts to his first really difficult period in charge. Does he conservatively fall back on familiar faces such as Jared Payne as No13, to get him out of this winless run, or does he risk taking the long-term view with a mind to Japan 2019 and blood even more inexperienced players in the Six Nations cauldron? The latter tactic would be preferable. Remember, IRFU high performance chief David Nucifora bemoaned in December how Ireland’s 2015 World Cup was derailed by inexperience, having the likes of Ian Madigan start a quarter-final without ever starting a championship match. With this in mind, surely next Saturday’s visit of the hapless Italians to Aviva Stadium is a ripe opportunity to give people like Madigan (or the more inform Paddy Jackson) rare Six Nations starting experience at No10, given how Ireland are no longer in the title hunt.
Schmidt currently has an image problem. His lowfrills brand of rugby was acceptable when the results were good but with victories not materialising, how Ireland play their game is now up for much greater scrutiny.
Compelling attacking flourishes on Schmidt’s watch have been fleeting ever since a 17-0 lead secured in the opening 15 minutes against Australia in November 2014 was completely squandered within another 15 minutes of play, and low risk now haunts their approach.
They have the lowest tally of offloads in 2016, just five compared to Wales’ nine, England’s 10, Scotland’s 13, Italy’s 18 and France’s mammoth 45, and while their number of linebreaks, 14, is a return comparable to their rivals (Scotland’s 19 tops the charts), reward is in very short supply due to lack of support for the line-breaking player and ineffective decision-making. Also, while they are not the Aussie Rules or Stoke City kickorientated outfit they were accused of being by England’s Eddie Jones (Ireland’s 80 kicks from the hand this term is less than Italy’s 85, France’s 94, Scotland’s 97, England’s 103 and Wales 115), the cumulative effect of whatever they are doing with the ball is that they are struggling to achieve the game’s most important thing – scoring.
With only 35 points in 240 minutes, they have the tournament’s lowest tally. Their return of just two tries is also a 2016 championship-worst statistic, while their current -12 points difference – fifth worst overall – further high- lights the troubles besetting the Schmidt operation that clinched its pair of titles with +63 and +68 points differences.
An unstable lineout in this postPaul O’Connell era, which has neutered the potency of their maul, is one reason for the scoring malaise, Ireland winning just 77.4 per cent of their throws (24/31) compared to the title-challenging Welsh, whose accuracy out of touch is 95.5 per cent (28/29). That is unmanageable rate of attrition, especially as kickable penalties for the nine-from-nine Johnny Sexton have been spurned in all three of their games.
Admittedly, their scrum completion rate on their own ball (21 out of 22 successes, 95.4 per cent) eclipses everyone except England, but the high amount of penalties they have conceded on the opposition put-in is a prime factor why their overall figure of 30 penalties conceded has been a painful wound. So too has been their try-leaking defence off five-metre scrums on their own line.
In general, inaccuracy has been Ireland’s biggest failing, a contrast to previous seasons when strict adherence to Schmidt’s forensic detail left them champions instead of struggling also-rans.
Preparations haven’t been helped by the lack of a specialist defence coach, nor by the IRFU head of fit- ness vacancy at a time when injuries have become increasingly prevalent, robbing the squad of some key figures. The rise of the hamstring injury should be especially perplexing and requires curbing.
For the moment, though, emphasis is on stubbing out this new-found bad habit of not winning games. All of 2016’s results will feed into World Rugby’s rankings ahead of this December’s draw for the 2019 World Cup. Having fallen to eighth, further slippage would only raise the prospect of getting stuck in a pool similar to the Australia, England, Wales and Fiji grouping last year.
High time then to strive for that top-half Six Nations finish.