O’Connell and Schmidt provide dream package
Paul O’Connell driving the players, Joe Schmidt with the coaches.
Paul was absolutely immense last Saturday in Paris, and if Ireland were lucky at the Stade de France, it was in having a leader like him on the field, and a coach like Schmidt in the box.
Paulie’s poach early in the second half changed the momentum of the game. His support play, his tackling, his encouragement, his body language... picking players up off the ground.
I heard him interviewed after the game, where he expressed disappointment with Ireland’s inability to close things out in the last 10 minutes. It’s a reasonable point, but who would you have expected to close it out?
We had a new number 10 on the pitch who had no experience of anything like the fevered atmosphere of last Saturday. Ian Madigan was actually very composed in the circumstances. I was fearful he might go for the Hollywood performance to make a quick impression, whereas that might have set his career back immeasurably. Instead he looked poised, like someone who’d been in the situation — which he hadn’t. It augurs well.
Suit and jacket analysis is simple. And few who do it understand the things that stress brought on by fatigue makes people do. Rob Kearney copped a bit of flak for that late clearance under pressure. I’ve read his explanation and you have to admire the thought process. If he ran it back and got penalised, he gives away a kickable penalty and we lose the title. The execution wasn’t good, but we can talk about my thing in Murrayfield too. I’d hit that crosskick 95 times out of a 100, but under pressure, I made a balls of it. Rob did this time. These things happen, that’s what intrigues us. Perhaps we haven’t seen many errors like that from Rob before, but one thing is certain — it’ll happen again. These are human failings, not computer glitches. Get over it.
Did Ireland have a slice or two of good fortune? Yes. But the tries we scored, you can’t describe them as lucky. Jean Marc Doussain missed a kickable penalty, but so did Johnny Sexton. The undeniable moment of fortune for Ireland was the final scrum against the head. Watch the tape. It’s excruciating. Look at referee Steve Walsh’s hand action, he is literally about to raise his hand for a penalty. He had already made his decision, it was transferring from brain to hand, and the ball, somehow, pops out of the scrum and makes his decision for him. Or perhaps saves him from making the decision. It looked like Chouly, who was playing at 8 at that stage, failed to control it, it squirted out somehow. France had everything, the ball, the push, the momentum, and it was snatched away from them. The millisecond between glory and failure.
Philippe Saint-Andre was beside me on the touchline, and he was apoplectic, as he had a right to be. He had just seen his side blow a simple two on one for the winning try, only to see Damien Chouly blow it with a poor line. Don’t blame Pape here. Chouly is 12 yards away from a second row trying to throw a left to right pass. That’s asking too much of the second row. Why isn’t the No 8 within pop distance? If Chouly changes his running line, and is more on Pape’s shoulder, it’s a try for France, and the game to boot. That’s what happens when you’re under stress in high-pressure situations. Honourable mention here though for Dave Kearney. It’s all fine and well slowing these things down on video afterwards, but watch the moment in real time, how the Irish winger killed the play. That’s not luck.
The Monday morning consensus in Paris was that if Ireland enjoyed the breaks in the Stade, they played better rugby that anyone else in the tournament as a whole. And, of course, the fact they pipped England to the title warmed the hearts of the French.
They were good last Saturday but hardly exceptional. Nor were Ireland. Let’s not get into fantasy analysis — we were nowhere as good as some people have been making out.
Analysis must be based on fact, not mood. The same ex-players and French media slaughtering their squad last week were fawning in their praise last Sunday. Balance please. There were cheerleaders in Ireland doing cartwheels last week at the same time the French players were being ripped apart. And it was three wins each going into last Saturday.
I don’t pretend to understand the psyche here in France, so the chat on Monday at Racing left me scratching my head. It was as if they needed that backs-against-the-wall desperation to guarantee maximum effort.
It reminded all here of the French football side’s predicament after losing 2-0 in the first leg of their World Cup play-off away to Ukraine. Everyone was convinced France would turn it around — and they did — because of the desperation of their situation. It’s almost a comfort blanket in France because it virtually guarantees they will turn up and perform. Even with the loss to Ireland, there’s now a degree of excitement about the three-match tour to Australia this summer.
Mathieu Bastereaud is a handful when he gets the mood on him. Gordon D’Arcy and Brian O’Driscoll might be looking at their Heineken Cup trip to Toulon even more gingerly after that experience last Saturday. He’s the size of John Hayes with wheels. Literally. He’s three times the size of an average man, and he can shift too. He’s not quite Jonah Lomu, because the All Black wing was a freak beyond all freaks. This guy is a freak though, but the consistency hasn’t been there to date. That was his best game for France, it’s not that he produces that week in, week out. But if he’s revved up, he just runs over whoever he wants.
I had a chat with Maxime Machenaud, Racing’s scrum-half afterwards. This lad’s a proper player and a good kicker. His consistency spotlighted Johnny’s difficulties off the tee, but as Max pointed out, the circumstances were different. “No pressure,” he shrugged. For him it was a normal game. For Sexton, it was the Irishman based in Paris, with the team playing for the Championship. In game terms, Sexton was outstanding, even if that hit from Bastereaud has forced him out of tomorrow’s game in Grenoble, on the advice of the medics.
Racing are on a three-day camp down in Mike Prendergast and Bernard Jackman’s backyard and it was only there I got a chance to talk to Johnny about last Saturday.
The bottom line is Johnny needs to trust his own technique, the one that works for him. I’ve been there in my career many times. You’re taking a bit of this, a bit of that, listening to too many voices and not trusting yourself.
Remember what I said earlier — these guys aren’t computers.
