Ireland’s gamekeeper turned poacher
However, if the first weekend of the 2013 Six Nations is a portent of things to come this spring, the debate is back in the mix again.
We witnessed two extraordinary matches in the Wales-Ireland and Italy-France matches, and if the England-Scotland Calcutta Cup game suffered by comparison, that’s understandable. England looked composed and well organised and I was massively impressed with new first centre Billy Twelvetrees, who has the power to crash it up but also looks like a ball player. With Manu Tuilagi returning from injury in time for Sunday’s clash at the Aviva Stadium, they both will be very hard to contain.
France were 1/9 to beat the Italians in Rome, but they produced a disgraceful performance and deserved to lose. We know the jury was out on French coach Philippe Saint-Andre and this result has done nothing to curry favour with a fickle rugby public. He must shoulder a lot of the blame as he spent last week complaining about the preparation time, the toughness of the Top 14 etc etc. Even before the match, he was quoted as saying his biggest objective with this French team was to build consistency, before offering the caveat: “But we’re French, so you never know.” From coaching here in France I know that to get the best out of the players, it’s important not to offer them excuses. They’ll find them quick enough themselves. Saint-Andre needs to demand consistency and not hope for it.
Ireland were very impressive in Wales and the onslaught they faced in the second half will stand to them next Sunday. Every player produced on the day and there were many outstanding performances, both on the field and in the coach’s box.
No one should underestimate the work done in the latter. I was fortunate enough to be in Ireland squads in 2009 when Declan Kidney’s management team recruited two men from outside the Irish system. Gert Smal, who had been the forwards coach to the 2007 World Cup-winning Springboks, came in with defence coach Les Kiss. Both made an immediate impression on and off the field and it’s no coincidence that Ireland’s set piece and pack have improved with Smal now recovered from the illness that ruled him out of last year’s Six Nations.
Kiss was a winger on what many say was the greatest Australian rugby league team of all time. He is one of the best communicators I’ve every been coached by and his ability to present his strategy or the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses is incredible. He is widely credited with the “choke” tackle that Ireland and the Irish provinces utilise better than anyone else but he is excellent in all the fundamentals of defence.
After the last World Cup, Kidney reshuffled the coaching structure with Kiss assuming a dual role of defence and attack coach, with assistance from Mark Tainton on the attacking side. Despite some innovative plays in opposition 22s, it was difficult to see clearly how Ireland set up to play with the ball in last year’s Six Nations. There seemed to be ambiguity in our attacking shape and pattern.
The new buzzword in pro rugby is ‘clarity’. Everyone is seeking clarity in their roles, responsibilities and objectives, which is a good thing. Following the tour to New Zealand in the summer, Kidney decided to change things around again and brought in Anthony Foley to look after the defence and Kiss took over full control of the attack. He is now gamekeeper turned poacher.
By the time we met South Africa in the November internationals, the shape was much better but we lacked the accuracy to hurt them. Against Fiji we dominated possession and scored enough tries to encourage players that this could work at Test level. The last match against Argentina was where it all came together. Against opponents who usually drag us into a dogfight, Ireland moved them around the field with the quality of our depth and pass. We played a high tempo style but took very few risks and gave pacey players out wide the opportunities to beat their man one-on-one. I suspect if we’d played the Springboks last in November we would have beaten them.
The real test though was replicating that performance against Wales away from home. It’s a real vindication that our attack, with only 36% possession, could have scored 30 points after only 43 minutes. Ireland took the game to a psychologically brittle Wales and made it difficult for them to reset their defence at each breakdown.
As a defence coach myself, my defence should never be under pressure when it’s only moving north-south. Therefore the objective of a smart attack is to get the defence moving. Because forwards are more comfortable defending close to the ruck, the more you shift the point of attack and the quicker you do that the more stressed the defence becomes. When a defence is stressed, it’s more likely to miss tackles or concede penalties, as happened in Wales.
What is Ireland’s attacking shape now? It’s a hybrid style of what the players use at provincial level but it plays to our strengths as a team. It brings our big ball-carrying forwards into the game regularly, the likes of Healy, O’Brien and O’Mahony. It allows Conor Murray test the fringes of the ruck on occasion — he is a real threat there.
It brings Sexton’s accurate and varied passing ability into play and it provides the opportunity for our centres (who aren’t the biggest) to use their footwork and passing ability to create space for the speed of Zebo and Gilroy and the power of Kearney. Everybody looks comfortable in their roles and responsibilities on the field.
Kudos therefore to Kiss and all the coaches for their role, including video analyst Mervyn Murphy who started the role under Warren Gatland. For each Test match Murphy provides a detailed analysis of the referee and Ireland, for the first 50 minutes, played Romain Poite perfectly at the breakdown.
We knew he was very amenable to the choke tackle and also allowed a real contest at the ruck, which isn’t always the case in the Pro12 or with the English refs in the Heineken.
As Kidney often says: “These things hinge on the small margins.”
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