Can Ireland adapt to retain Six Nations crown and four other big questions
With new coaches and captains adding to the spice, the opening round of games this weekend should go a long way towards lifting the fog and by this time next week, we will have a far clearer vision on what this year’s championship will offer across the board.
So what areas am I looking for clarification on over the weekend?
Chances are, that without any major change in personnel, apart from those unwelcome injuries up front and the retirement of Paul O’Connell, Schmidt will not tweak Ireland’s playing style to any appreciable degree.
It appears certain that Robbie Henshaw and Jared Payne will once again link up in midfield and that Rob Kearney will retain his starting position at full back.
That suggests Ireland will continue to build on the kicking strategy that delivered back-to-back championships over the last two seasons. If anything, I think Ireland will be even more direct.
The thing that resonated most with Schmidt from that defeat to Argentina was a motivational message he saw when he visited the victors’ dressing room to offer his congratulations on their comprehensive win in Cardiff.
It simply said: “Win the collisions, win the collisions.” That mantra was everywhere and it worked. In the opening quarter, Argentina blew Ireland away in the contact area. As a consequence, Ireland will need to be far more physical up front to succeed in this year’s championship. They will also need to be smarter.
Teams are now coming to terms with Ireland’s kicking strategy and feel they know what to expect against them. Have Ireland become too predictable? Will Schmidt turn that on its head on Sunday and unveil a vastly different approach? I doubt it, if only for the fact that he has only had five training sessions since the World Cup in the buildup to this game. Something needs to change however if Ireland are to retain their crown.
Sunday should tell us a lot.
The appointment of Dylan Hartley as the England captain tells us all we need to know about their new coach. Eddie Jones is very much his own man and will not he led by outside influences.
He is not afraid to take on those in authority and the RFU can brace themselves for some interesting confrontations behind closed doors.
The biggest benefactors of that should be the England players. In Jones, they have somebody who will work harder than anyone else, will demand high standards and will innovate.
England, with a single Six Nations championship to their name since winning the 2003 World Cup, have underachieved for too long.
It’s difficult to see what major tactical adjustments Jones will be able to impose in the six training sessions he has had with the team prior to their opening game against Scotland on Saturday evening.
What I do expect to see is a reemphasis on delivering a powerful set piece — Hartley has a key role here — and a voracious defence shaped and moulded by Saracens’ defence coach Paul Gustard.
The most interesting aspect for me however surrounds England’s attacking structure. Given that Jones is taking direct responsibility for this key area, it will be fascinating to see if some of the classy innovation he brought to the Brumbies cause over a decade ago will resurface once again here.
The Scots love nothing better than beating England but have failed spectacularly on that front with just three wins in their last 27 clashes.
Their performance against Australia last time out has lifted expectation levels to a new high and much depends on how Vern Cotter’s charges cope with that this weekend.
The biggest issue for Scotland over that last decade has been a mental fragility that has seen them lose countless games that were there for the taking. They have no idea how to close out tight contests. To counter that, Cotter has sought to drip feed a batch of Scottish qualified players with proven mental fortitude who have learned their trade in the southern hemisphere.
Since last year’s appalling championship, when they lost all five games on Cotter’s maiden voyage, the Kiwi has introduced three players — WP Nel, Josh Strauss, and John Hardie — all of whom made a big impact at the World Cup.
While the collapse in form of last season’s Guinness Pro12 champions Glasgow must be a worry, the hard edge and mental solidity this trio provide could help this squad to finally turn a corner. As with Ireland in Dublin, an opening round home win is absolutely essential to launch a decent campaign. The question remains however, do they have the mental fortitude to deliver in front of an ever expectant home crowd.
If Wales manage to beat Ireland in Dublin on Sunday, then I fancy them to win the championship.
The most important quality Warren Gatland has brought to his nine seasons in charge of Wales is managing to instill a belief in a squad of players that regularly under-perform at club level.
He has convinced his charges that they are bigger, stronger, and fitter than all the other side’s in this championship and he will seek to impose that power once again in the contact area at the Aviva Stadium. On the plus side from an Irish perspective, Wales have been notoriously slow out of the blocks in tournaments.
Their regional sides have been off the pace in European competition for years and the intensity of the international game often catches them cold. The question now is, with the intense conditioning they undertook prior to the World Cup and massive tests against Australia, England, and South Africa only a few short months ago, are they now better positioned to hit the ground running from the off against Ireland?
In their last Six Nations outing, France conceded over 55 points against England and 62 in their most recent test against New Zealand. They have been in disarray for some time yet the French federation has placed their trust in a new head coach in Guy Noves, who was at his prime 10 years ago. Technically, Noves is old school and will therefore rely on his assistant coaches Yannick Bru, Jean Frederic Dubois, and Gerald Bastide to deliver the tactical nuances required by his players.
One thing that Noves will do is give his players a licence to play. They haven’t had that for some time. Under Philippe Saint-Andre, France became obsessed with size and reneged on the basic principles of the game that French supporters hold so dearly. With two home games at the Stade de France to launch his vision, Noves must seize the opportunity against Italy on Saturday — and Ireland the following week — to capture the imagination of the French public.
It helps that their set piece will be strong but so much depends on what is sure to be yet another new French half-back partnership, most likely Toulouse scrum half Sebastian Bezy and Jules Plisson, to find the space and feed the pace out wide. Bizarrely, when the vast majority of players in this season’s championship were resting up last weekend, France had 21 of their squad involved in Top 14 clashes leaving Noves with little or no time to prepare for Saturday’s opening challenge. Therefore it’s impossible to know what to expect from them.
