Bernard Jackman: Ireland’s 6 Nations defence and discipline was world class

Ireland went about their business with the poise and precision of a surgeon, writes Bernard Jackman.

Saturday produced the most entertaining yet bizarre day of rugby I have ever witnessed. Wales set the mark before lunchtime in Rome come strong after the break after a sluggish opening half.

Ireland went about their business with the poise and precision of a surgeon and then had to watch helpless as England and France slugged out what the French media yesterday termed the “Match de Fou” or the ‘Crazy Game’.

When the dust eventually settled, Ireland were champions and the celebrations could begin in earnest.

After five rounds and 30 matches it is incredible to think that only 6 and 10 points separated us from England in second and Wales in third on the points differential table.

It is said that attack wins games and defence wins Championship and Ireland conceded just a miserly 56 points over the campaign — a staggering 37 less than the Welsh.

Our players’ attitude and desire to defend within the system but also for each other has been incredible. We have real detail in and around the ruck and we mix up the chop and the choke tackle making it difficult for opposition teams to work us out. Our discipline was world class against Scotland when only conceding six penalties over the 80 minutes.

Discipline — with the exception of the Wales match when we conceded 11 penalties — was excellent in this campaign which also proved crucial in deciding the championship.

We certainly showed we learnt lessons from the defeat in Cardiff. While we played narrowly against Wales we looked to attack the space over the 15 metre channels much more frequently against the Scots.

After the match I saw Simon Zebo on the pitch celebrating with the squad. He contributed massively to this trophy but I wondered how he must have been feeling seeing the amount of touches and the quality ball that came down the left wing on Saturday where he had spent most of the Championship chasing high kicks or getting the ball when well covered by defenders.

Sport is cruel and his replacement Luke Fitzgerald was excellent with the rich feed of possession which he received.

When Jonathan Sexton wanted to play a little wider he always had two options for his pass, one runner (normally a forward running a hard flat line) and a second option, deeper who could attack the line from depth or throw that second pass which brought our outside backs into play.

Sean O’Brien showed that the game time he has accumulated over the last month has returned the explosive power to his legs. He was a constant source of go forward ball for us and capped the day with two great tries.

His first was a result of a ‘Powerplay’ which Schmidt designed to attack a weakness in the Scottish defensive organisation on full line-outs. When teams throw that ball to the very back of the line-out and over the 15 metre line they send scrum half Greg Laidlaw around to try and cut off the pass and Blair Cowan follows. Toner slipped the ball to O’Brien and he had the pace and step to finish.

Cian Healy, getting his first start, was also crucial as he gave us a very solid scrum and another carrier for Conor Murray or Sexton to use. Peter O’Mahoney would have been man of the match on another day and the Irish back row as a whole dominated their Scottish counterparts comprehensively.

We had a very nice balance to our game and kicked the ball 27 times but those kicks and kick chases were excellent. We re-gathered on many occasions and I still believe kicking will be a big part of our success and strategy.

The quality of the attacking play across all three matches Saturday hopefully will put an end to all the negative talk about the game being too physical and needing drastic law changes.

I even heard one pundit talk about making it a 13 man game. There is always space and opportunity on the pitch with the current laws. It is up to us coaches to give players the skills and the strategic tools to go and find that space.

We saw three teams that had to chase scores and the spectacles we witnessed was the best advertisement we could have had for the game.