Piecing together the perfect 80 minutes from a golden year for Irish rugby

The perfect team performance? It’s never going to happen from a coach’s or a player’s perspective.

Sat, 24 Nov, 2018 - 06:20

Simon Lewis

The perfect team performance? It’s never going to happen from a coach’s or a player’s perspective.

So even after a calendar year so spectacularly successful for Ireland that even Johnny Sexton says he is having to pinch himself to see if it really happened, there were still flaws for the fly-half to pinpoint when he sat down for his Guinness Rugby Writers Ireland Player of the Year interview last Monday.

Asking him to select the team performance that pleased him most from Ireland’s annus mirabilis gave him pause for thought.

“We wouldn’t have played the perfect game, I don’t think,” Sexton said, “but there’s probably patches of games where we were pretty impressive.

“There were patches in Twickenham in the Grand Slam decider, whether with the ball or without the ball, that were pretty good. There were patches on Saturday that were pretty good and even that Wales game where we had to dig in, we played some brilliant stuff that day.”

“So against the big teams, like that five minutes at the end of the French game, there’s highlights through all the games where you look back and think ‘that was pretty special’ but in terms of one game, no.”

That may well be Sexton’s way but the Irish Examiner has nevertheless pieced together the perfect Ireland game from 2018.

Setting out the stall

There are a couple of ways to issue an early calling card, with a flurry of tries the most obvious. That was certainly the case in both games against Italy this year, in round two of the Six Nations as well as Chicago three Saturdays ago and, importantly, in the Grand Slam decider at Twickenham when England’s Anthony Watson failed to deal with a Sexton bomb under pressure from Rob Kearney and Garry Ringrose grounded for a try just six minutes in.

The other way, against top-ranking opposition, was just as effective. Ireland withstood an opening onslaught by New Zealand to set the tone with bloody-minded defiance that would keep the world champions tryless and in single figures for the first time since 1998.

Ireland’s opening defensive set through 12 phases of All Blacks pressure on their five-metre line delivered a huge psychological blow inside the first five minutes. The coup de grace saw CJ Stander in and over the ball as one-out runner Liam Squire was tackled to the ground by James Ryan. Both Stander and Josh van der Flier swarmed over the carrier to render support from Sam Whitelock and Karl Tu’inukuafe redundant as Wayne Barnes penalised their man Squire for holding on and Aviva Stadium erupted.

That Ireland went up the other end and emerged from their own multi-phase play with the first points of the night from a Sexton penalty, underlined just how hard a game this was going to be for Steve Hansen’s men.

Doubling down on dominance

Back to Twickenham in the ice-cold temperatures and snow flurries of St Patrick’s Day as Ireland consolidated their early lead in search of the Grand Slam following Ringrose’s early try.

Having gone 7-0 up after six minutes, Ireland did not let up over the next 20 minutes, proving why they are the best in the world at holding onto the ball to keep the English firmly on the back foot and inside their own half. There were frustrations, a dropped ball out wide by Bundee Aki in the 18th phase of a masterful period of possession, but Ireland did not wait long for their reward.

On 23 minutes, off a lineout, Ireland gain a penalty advantage as O’Mahony wins the ball but is tackled in the air by Maro Itoje. That doesn’t halt Ireland’s move, though, as they unleash a sublime play, Sexton passing short to Tadhg Furlong just over the English 10m line and the tighthead prop showcasing his handling skills. This time the Sexton wrap was a dummy and Furlong instead laid off a reverse pass to Aki running an excellent line to feed Stander, who charged to glory from inside 15m and scored off the base of the post.

A killer blow before the break

Ireland have scored just before the interval several times in 2018. There was Aki’s try against Wales on the stroke of half-time with Sexton’s conversion nudging Schmidt’s side into a 15-13 lead and Jacob Stockdale’s similarly timed, converted score against Scotland to open up a 14-3 lead from which the visitors never recovered in a defeat that would hand Ireland its first Six Nations title since 2014.

A week later at Twickenham and it was Stockdale again, this time taking the momentum back out of English hands after a Peter O’Mahony sin-binning had given the home side an entry onto the scoreboard.

It was another Itoje lineout penalty concession that put Ireland in the driving seat and more multi-phase possession created a gap for left-wing Stockdale to work his magic, chipping over Mike Brown, seeing the ball bounce off his knee on the try-line and using every centimetre of the in-goal area to touch down and reassert Ireland’s authority.

Joey Carbery’s touchline conversion sent Ireland into the break with a 21-5 lead just 40 minutes from a Grand Slam.

Starting the second half in style

Holding onto a winning position at the start of the second period was crucial for Ireland as they kept teams at bay after half-time. Twice in Australia this summer, in the second and third Tests against the Wallabies, Ireland extended interval leads with the first scores after the restart, through Furlong in Melbourne en route to a 26-21 series-levelling win and then courtesy of Stander’s try four minutes after the break in Sydney a week later to open up a 17-9 lead that set up a first series win in Australia since 1979.

Last Saturday’s third quarter proved just as important for Joe Schmidt’s men as Stockdale struck again, backing his kicking skills moments after being charged down by Kieran Read to send the ball over Brodie Retallick and then outpace Aaron Smith to score the only try of the game. It immediately put the All Blacks on the back foot with Sexton’s conversion opening up a 16-6 lead to leave the world champions chasing the game.

Le drop: Escape to victory

The moment that set Ireland on the road to the Grand Slam, rescuing their campaign when it threatened to be a fall at the first in Paris. Yet it was more than just a brilliantly executed drop goal from Sexton.

This was a sign Ireland were more than the sum of its parts, capable of sticking to a gameplan and not panicking when the situation looked irretrievable. Trailing 13-12 on 77 minutes after France missed a penalty to seal victory, Ireland ran the ball from deep and retained possession through 41 phases to take the game into an 83rd minute.

Sexton stepped back into the pocket and took the laser pass from Conor Murray, launching a long-range drop kick that flew between the uprights to secure a 15-13 victory. Job done.

Ireland’s year