Plumtree challenges pack to prove ‘greatness’

Ireland forwards coach John Plumtree has laid the gauntlet down this week. Not to Wales, but to his own pack, which he believes has to make the leap from good to great if Joe Schmidt’s side is to realise ambitions to win the Six Nations.

It is a timely challenge, given the imminent arrival in town of Warren Gatland’s Welsh team, one which trades in abrasive physicality, and Plumtree admitted Ireland have to “up the ante” from their display against Scotland last Sunday.

“If you’re going to win this competition, I think the greatest set of forwards is certainly going to contribute to winning it,” said the man whose New Zealand upbringing and years spent in South Africa make him well-qualified on the topic.

“If you have the better pack at the weekend also you get a better opportunity to win that game.

“In my mind, Irish forwards are good but they’re not great and that was where we wanted to go. We have some really good individuals in that pack — probably every one of them — but to become great, you’ve got to work hard together and that was the challenge I dished out to them.”

It was Devin Toner who initially shared the ambitious nature of the Kiwi’s challenge to his troops yesterday and, though Plumtree was initially slow to discuss it, he proceeded to give an enlightening insight into a unit that must now make the biggest jump of all in elite sport.

Irish packs have never traditionally been the biggest, the strongest or the best but Plumtree believes the bar simply must be set as high as possible and that the men under his command must now seek to match the standards of the game’s greats if the team, as a whole, is to hit the heights.

“You look at the All Blacks pack over the years, how they’ve dominated the southern hemisphere. The Springboks as well. Generally, when the Springboks have done really well, their pack has dominated.

“That’s the world that I come from,” he continued. “We have got some outstanding backs but unless their pack is formidable and dominates, as a group, then we won’t get what we want.”

It’s an honest judgment of Ireland’s finest grunts but one that should not be sensationalised as a slight because Plumtree had positive words for all eight of his starters against the Scots at the Aviva Stadium last week.

With Peter O’Mahony it is his work-rate and accuracy; Chris Henry his form for Ulster over the last few weeks while Rory Best he describes as an underrated player. Mike Ross is “stepping up” and Toner is proving Plumtree’s early concerns about his lengthy frame wrong.

Dan Tuohy was praised for the effortless manner in which he replaced Paul O’Connell at such short notice in round one while O’Connell himself, Cian Healy and Jamie Heaslip were labelled simply as outstanding. The absent Sean O’Brien he called world class.

Much to work with there, then, and yet improvement is required and clearly expected, and Plumtree refused the chance to sugarcoat matters yet again when he admitted that Ireland don’t have a single forward who is the global leader in his own position right now.