Form must now dictate Irish No 10
While New Zealand were always likely to complete a highly impressive third Grand Slam in six seasons, the unpalatable fact is that had South Africa been anything close to full strength, they too would have enjoyed a blemishless autumn.
When you consider that players of the calibre of captain John Smit, Fourie du Preez, Heinrich Brussow, Danie Roussow, Schalk Burger, Jaque Fourie, Gurthro Steenkamp and JP Pietersen were all left at home, you begin to appreciate that the Boks will not give up their title of world champions without a serious fight next year — despite all the reservations surrounding their coach.
One tour grand slam is bad enough, but two would not reflect well on northern hemisphere rugby. As it is, despite all the huffing and puffing, the Tri Nations dominated the series over their Six Nations rivals by a substantial margin, winning 10 of the 12 contests on offer.
It is hard to escape the feeling, 10 months out from the World Cup, that once again, the big three have stolen a march on the rest. The most astonishing 40 minutes of rugby I have seen for some time was Australia’s utter demolition of France in Paris on Saturday night. They looked capable of scoring every time they had the ball and their range of skills was breathtaking.
Despite the continued brilliance of New Zealand, that Australian result is of far more significance from an Irish perspective, given that we are in the same RWC pool. Once they sort out their scrum difficulties — and in adversity Robbie Deans may have stumbled on a solution — they will be hard to match. When 21-year-old James Slipper was forced to move to tight head from loose head after Ben Alexander was yellow carded, Australia’s scrum stabilised. If Slipper can handle the diminutive Thomas Domingo, he will be a match for anyone.
While the return of Paul O’Connell is sure to boost Ireland’s lineout stats, it is largely irrelevant against the Wallabies because they don’t kick to touch. France looked lost at times on Saturday night when presented with only six line-outs in the entire game to launch their game-plan.
The most intriguing aspect of the autumn programme for me was the manner in which Australia, South Africa and New Zealand all finished their campaigns on a high and full of energy. Australia and South Africa produced their best performances of the month and looked fresh and full of running. Contrast that with the efforts of the northern hemisphere sides when they travel down under every June.
Last week, manager Paul McNaughton hinted at the fact that four tests on the bounce was proving very difficult for Ireland, yet all three SANZAR teams will play on five consecutive weekends on this tour as South Africa still have to face the Barbarians on Saturday, while the Wallabies and the All Blacks met in Hong Kong en route to Europe.
They seem far more capable of managing the physical impositions of such scheduling. The Ireland dressing room was like a war zone after the New Zealand game, while England also suffered badly on this front against the Springboks last weekend with Chris Ashton, Tom Croft and Toby Flood all requiring hospitalisation after the game.
Just as well that Ireland had an eight-day turnaround between the New Zealand and Argentina games, given they were unable to train properly for a number of days given the casualty count. The heavy workload over the last four weeks has raised issues that need to be addressed. After all, if Ireland aspire to win the World Cup, they will be required to play seven internationals within the space of six weeks between September 11 and October 23 next year.
On the plus side, the form of several established Irish players including Gordon D’Arcy, Brian O’Driscoll, Stephen Ferris, Jamie Heaslip and Donncha O’Callaghan was encouraging while of the younger brigade Cian Healy, Sean Cronin, Jonathan Sexton and Tony Buckley (at 30 still young enough for a prop) all emerged with credit. It seemed strange however that Keith Earls was offered so little game time, especially after doing so well for Munster against Australia. In addition, Peter Stringer and Ronan O’Gara displayed enough to show that they still demand to be in the mix.
The situation at out-half is fascinating and encouraging. O’Gara’s form this season has been excellent and he almost single-handedly plucked the South African test from the ashes. All along I supported Declan Kidney in his desire to expose Sexton to top quality opposition over the last 12 months with the needs of the World Cup in mind. Sexton now has that experience and come the Six Nations, form alone should dictate who gets the number 10 jersey. That should be an enthralling battle, as O’Gara sets out to make his case over the next two months after a frustrating autumn.
At the outset of the series, I expressed the hope that Ireland would identify a discernible pattern of play that suits our skill set and temperament — an Irish approach. Progress on that front has been made and Ireland showed during the New Zealand game that they too can be effective when retaining possession, kicking less and off-loading in the tackle. The difficulty is that they cannot sustain it for long enough periods to make it totally effective.
My worry is that we are not evolving quickly enough to last the pace with the big three and do not meet southern hemisphere opposition again until the World Cup itself. Ireland will fare quite well in the Six Nations, especially with France and England travelling to Dublin, but my concern is that playing against each other doesn’t offer any real avenue for continued improvement.
Finally, a word for the Pacific Island teams. During the 2007 RWC when sides like, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, along with Georgia and Namibia, were given support by the IRB and proper time to prepare, they excelled. Already with little or no preparation Samoa and Fiji looked very serious opposition and will only get better. No wonder Kidney expressed relief after Ireland’s encounter with Samoa that they were not in our pool.
While it would appear that the gap between the top three in the IRB rankings and the rest has grown, there is little to separate the teams ranked from four to 10. France and Wales are all over the place at the moment, Scotland and England have made considerable progress while Italy show no signs as yet of benefiting from their inclusion in the Magners League. The game is moving away from the set piece slugfest that they favour and is better for it.
