Ireland's back three options offer tasty range of offensive delights
DELIGHT: Ireland’s Michael Lowry runs in to score his sides third try.
NOT the type of century you want to achieve - especially with question marks hanging over Italy's very existence in the Six Nations championship with South Africa making no secret of where they see their long term future. Yesterday’s defeat in Dublin marked the 100th defeat suffered by Italy since their arrival in this tournament back in 2000.
The problem with this fixture, or indeed any involving Italy across the Six Nations, is one knows in advance, with virtual certainty, who is going to win. The only issue up for debate is the margin of victory and that, in many instances, comes down to the approach in the selection of the national coach.
That just doesn’t apply to the other two games played across every round, even when a clear favourite exists going into the game. Having beaten England in round one, popular opinion favored a Scottish win in Cardiff against a Welsh side who failed to fire a shot against Ireland in Dublin in the opening round. The Welsh had different ideas however, winning 20-17 against the odds.
Despite that defeat, many expected Scotland to give tournament favorites France a strong run for their money in Edinburgh on Saturday. The Scots actually played well before this ever-evolving French team underlined their class by scoring six tries against the best defensive team in the tournament dating back to the start of last season.
Put in that context, Ireland’s performance in Paris last time out looks even better now.
The big dilemma the Ireland head coach has to consider in advance of selection for the Italian game is getting the mix right, given the desire to expose some emerging talent with the reality that many of the recent championships have been decided by points differential with the margin of victory over the Italians proving decisive.
Little did Andy Farrell appreciate in advance of yesterday's contest that the age old failing of Italian indiscipline would come back to haunt them and completely change the shape of this game. Italy became architects of their own destruction as early as the 19th minute with the sending off of replacement hooker Hame Faiva for a reckless tackle on Ireland hooker Dan Sheehan.
With starting hooker Gianmarco Lucchesi already off the field with a dislocated elbow, the game descended into farce when Italy opted for uncontested scrums with two hookers now out of action. By opting to go down this route, Italy were required by law to remove a further player from the field reducing them to thirteen players.
This law was introduced to punish a team who may be tempted to withdraw a front row player with an injury to force uncontested scrums against a clearly more powerful opposition pack. This situation was different, however, in that Italy had already lost a hooker to injury. Its unlikely that the law makers had taken that situation into consideration when introducing this particular sanction.
Given that no other player had declared on the match card in advance of the game that he had the capacity to play hooker, the Italian management and referee had no choice but to declare uncontested scrums.
Playing with a full deck was going to be challenging enough for the Italians in the first place but being reduced to 13 men, with 60 minutes to go, and 12 when Braam Steyn was yellow carded on the 70th minute made the task impossible. The only question that remained was the margin of the Irish victory.
If anything Ireland appeared spooked by the amount of space available to them, which encouraged them to force some passes and off loads that they otherwise may not have attempted, resulted in a number of handling errors.
Another unintended consequence was that players were looking to stay on their feet to make themselves available in anticipation of a pass or off load from the ball carrier as opposed to assisting him in the tackle area. Without that support cleaning out bodies at the breakdown, Ireland conceded a number of penalties for failing to release the ball in the tackle.
Having gone 53 minutes before conceding a single penalty against Wales in the opening game of the championship, Ireland racked up five by the break this time out. England will have noted this and look to attack the Irish ball carrier even more in Twickenham.
In the circumstances one could only admire the tenacity and never-say-die attitude of the Italian players who, despite facing impossible odds, made life as difficult as humanly possible of Ireland until the flood gates eventually opened.
The magnitude of this nine try massacre will only serve to heap even more pressure on an already beleaguered Italian outfit. The plus 51 point differential that Ireland accumulated in such extraordinary circumstances puts them in a very strong position should France slip up in either of their remaining games, away to Wales and at home to England.
It also renders any in-depth analysis of the Irish performances a little meaningless given the numerical advantage they carried for the vast majority of the game. That said there was much to admire in some areas, not least in the impact made by Dan Sheehan in his first Six Nations start ahead of the injured Ronan Kelleher.
The basics of his game have always been solid not least the quality of his line out throwing. It’s around the field however that is influence was so pronounced. He looks really comfortable on the ball, is a really explosive carrier with an equally impressive passing game.
Michael Lowry offered further evidence that his brilliant broken field running in Ulster colors can be equally effective on the international stage even if it looks odds on that Hugo Keenan will be handed the No 15 shirt for Twickenham.
Along with Sheehan up front, his former Trinity teammate Ryan Baird delivered some classic glimpses of the athleticism and explosive pace that have made him a stand out performer for Leinster.
One of Farrell’s targets is to increase Ireland strength in depth over the course of this tournament without compromising results which is exactly what he has achieved in the back three in particular.
Apart altogether from the excitement being generated from the way Ireland expanded their attacking game during the November series, the willingness of Farrell to back the free running counter-attacking skills offered by Mack Hansen and Lowry was great to see.
Couple their inclusion with the return to arms of James Lowe whose expanded brief now includes popping up all over the field as a first receiver, not to mention the left foot kicking option and you have a back three brimming with class.
Nowhere is that underlined by the quality of players who missed out on selection yesterday, for a variety of reasons in that sector alone. Keenan, Andrew Conway and Keith Earls, coupled with Robert Baloucoune, Simon Zebo and Jacob Stockdale represent two alternative units, each brimming with class with Jordon Larmour also on his comeback trail.
With just two games remaining, Ireland remain in contention for championship honors should the unlikely occur and this French side come acropper somewhere over the next few weeks. That said, it's unlikely the players will encounter a game as bizarre as this again in the immediate future. England will certainly ask questions of an entirely different nature next up.
