GETTING BALANCE RIGHT

Schmidt’s men must push forward with confidence after encouraging performance

IT WAS great to see Ireland find that all-important balance between the kicking and running game, and crucially, to see the off-load coming to fruition.

The one thing I had looked for beforehand was a repeat of the excellent Jamie Heaslip try in the Italy game, with that great offload from Simon Zebo to start the move. Yesterday, two of the best phases in the game came from Heaslip offloading in turn – one almost ended up with Keith Earls scoring in the corner, only for his pass to be intercepted, while the other allowed Devin Toner to pop in under the posts.

When you look at offloading like that, it looks so easy that you think, ‘Why don’t we do this more often?’ Hopefully Ireland will now continue with some confidence in executing the offloading game. But the balance had to be there from the start.

CJ Stander had a huge game doing what he does best for Munster, carrying the ball hard into traffic and getting across the gainline.

Against the huge, physical French and English, this was not very effective. In fairness to Stander, that was mainly down to the laws of physics!

However, against the smaller Scottish back row, he was able to dominate the collisions which put lots of pressure on the visitors at the breakdown, leading to early penalties and John Barclay’s yellow card.

My one criticism with how Ireland played in that first half was the way Scotland lined up across the pitch, with no one committed to the ruck or behind the ruck. Stander picked and went beautifully once, straight through the ruck, yet Ireland didn’t look to do it again for the rest of game. It was an area we should have really looked to exploit more.

Holding the ball in that first half and winning the collisions, I’ve never seen Ireland dominate possession as much in those first 30 minutes or so. There was one grievous error, however, when Ireland went to exit. Conor Murray, with his unpredictable box-kicking – one time it’s a peach, the next it’s a howler – this time it was the latter and far too long, especially with Stuart Hogg at the back and some clever, legitimate obstruction from Tim Visser on Andrew Trimble.

Hogg was left with a clear run through the midfield. From before the box-kick, you could see that from across the ruck at only five meters from the touchline, Ireland just had four or five bodies across the remainder of the pitch, and two of those were front rows. Hogg’s eyes must have lit up when he saw Mike Ross standing there like a lone wildebeest in the Savannah – and Ross never had a chance in that space against Hogg. The error here was not only the execution of the kick, but tactically going for the box-kick when you don’t have a proper chase-line set-up.

Luckily, Ireland were back at it in no time and Stander capped that great first half with an NFL-style dive over the ruck to score.

I had flagged that Duncan Taylor, for all his attributes, had a bad habit of flying out of the defensive line. Indeed, just as Johnny Sexton looked to throw a wide pass, which would have ended up in an intercept, he suddenly adjusted and dinked a sublime left-foot chip, which led to a Keystone Cops moment as Tommy Seymour ran straight into Hogg with the ball coming free for Earls to pounce and score. This was all Seymour’s fault, as you always leave the ball for the player coming from behind, and their communication certainly let them down here.

To their credit Scotland fought back and almost opened Ireland up for a try, as Jared Payne gambled and ran out of the line. They still looked like they could win this contest.

You would imagine that the halftime chat from Vern Cotter must have been to copy Ireland and hold onto the ball, as they had such little possession in that opening half, and they did start off very well after the restart.

However, that positive start was killed when Ireland injected the offload into their game. We saw a beautiful offload from Heaslip to O’Donnell, and some brilliant interplay with Payne’s over-the-end pass to Robbie Henshaw and back to Earls, only for the last pass to be intercepted. Mind you, after Payne had passed he deliberately ran an obstruction line and was lucky not to concede a penalty.

From this field position, Ireland, through their maul, set up for a Murray speciality – pick-and-go on the line where he used his strength and reach to put the hosts 28-13 clear. Normally that would have been Ire-

land home and hosed, but this Scottish side is made of sterner stuff than we have experienced over the last decade or so.

They fought to the end and Ireland really had to keep their intensity up to see out the win, with the offload to the fore again for Toner’s try. This was a proper test match.

Performance-wise both sides should be happy. Both have certainly taken a step forward, but Ireland the bigger one.

The hard grounds of South Africa now await, but Ireland thankfully seem to be getting the required balance to compete with the big boys down under.