New Year can't come soon enough for Andy Farrell

Ireland’s Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray celebrate a try by Keith Earls during the Autumn Nations Cup match against Scotland at the Aviva Stadium. Picture: Ramsey Cardy

Andy Farrell will enjoy his mince pies an awful lot more this Christmas after his new-look Ireland squad finally put together a cohesive and winning performance to close out 2020.

Yet with the dust barely settled on an encouraging and well-deserved 31-16 victory over Six Nations rivals to claim third place in the Autumn Nations Cup, the head coach was the first to accept there is a long way to go before his team resembles anything close to the finished article.

The selection experimentation seen during this six-Test autumn campaign may well be put on hold with the 2021 Guinness Six Nations just around the corner but the growing pains experienced from attempts to play to an evolving attacking gameplan, which Farrell acknowledged following last month’s defeat at Twickenham and a wretched second half in beating Georgia, are sure to continue.

So let us recognise what this victory over Scotland represents, a solid step forward for a new, post-Joe Schmidt collective at the start of a new coaching team’s journey to the 2023 World Cup.

Which will come as a relief to Ireland supporters fed a diet of gloom by a stream of ex-players in the wake of those disappointments in the last eight weeks against France, England, and Georgia.

There was credence in some of the criticism aimed largely at Farrell these past eight weeks as anyone that watched his players seemingly incapable of unlocking a stubborn Georgian defence for 40 minutes two Sundays ago will attest.

So too, those who witnessed the attempt to play a power game against one the most physically dominant teams in world rugby the weekend before that.

For the Irish management, though, it was all part of the growing process for a diverse squad of old and new players still attempting to absorb new plans shedding while the more experienced among them attempted to shed the more prescriptive elements of the previous head coach’s tenure.

Saturday’s performance, save for a 20-minute spell from the 10th minute when Ireland once again seemed to retreat into their shells as Scotland opened up a 9-3 lead, was the first solid proof for those of us outside the Ireland camp that progress is being made.

Those within have been telling us that great strides have been made on the training field, which is all well and good but this was something tangible for supporters to get behind ahead of the 2021 championship opener in Wales on February 7.

So the opportunity to look forward with optimism was taken by Farrell on Saturday night and who could blame him for that and for looking back with a certain satisfaction on a first year at the helm in which he used 42 players across nine games and awarded 11 Test debuts, the most recent of which came on Saturday when Ulster loosehead prop Eric O’Sullivan made his entrance with 14 minutes to go and the game all over bar the shouting thanks to two tries from Keith Earls and another form Cian Healy in an 11-minute spell either side of half-time.

With Tadhg Furlong and Dave Kilcoyne hopefully returning from injury to bolster front-row stocks, likewise Garry Ringrose and Jordan Larmour in the backline and a long-awaited return for back-row enforced Dan Leavy there are grounds for renewed belief in this Ireland set-up.

Yet the hard work will continue and the head coach said his project remains a work in progress.

“There’s always a perfect picture that you never get in international rugby,” Farrell said.

“Scotland are never going to allow you to be the team that you want to be and that’s what Test match rugby is all about but we want to improve in many areas.

‘For example... I can pull apart every area of our game that we need to improve but counter attack-wise, attacking in the 22, you saw parts of it today that’s getting better. It’s still a work in progress and all of the fundamentals are so important.

“Set-piece wise, we need more continuity to be more clinical, so they’re all works in progress - it’s how you join them up and make sure that you’re able to play the game that you want to play. It’s going to be unbelievably difficult.

“Will you see that in the Six Nations with the type of competition that you’ve got? Hopefully, that’s what we’re striving for.”

With the cavalry returning, and home games against the two strongest teams currently, England and France, is there cause to believe Ireland can surprise a few people and win the 2021 Six Nations?

“I 100% think that we believe,” Farrell said.

“Lads are gonna fall by the wayside over the tough schedule over the Christmas period, so I don’t think you’re ever going to have a full squad but any side would welcome the quality of Tadhg and Ringer, etc, and there’s all sorts of other lads who are going to come back into the frame, fitness-wise, but the learnings for the lads who have been in here.

“I mean, how priceless has this period been for the likes of (Furlong’s tighthead deputy) Andrew Porter and for many others in a similar position. It’s been a great period to grow the group in maturity regarding international experience. There was always an eye on preparation for what’s going to be around the corner after Christmas.”

IRELAND: J Stockdale; H Keenan, B Aki, R Henshaw (C Farrell, 78), K Earls; J Sexton - captain (R Byrne, 64), C Murray (J Gibson-Park, 78); C Healy (E O’Sullivan, 65), R Herring (R Kelleher, 64), A Porter (John Ryan, 74); I Henderson (Q Roux, 38), James Ryan (C Doris 74); CJ Stander, P O’Mahony (J van der Flier, 52-62 - HIA), C Doris (J van der Flier, 65).

SCOTLAND: S Hogg – captain; D Graham (S Maitland, 55), C Harris, D Taylor (H Jones, 45-50, 64), D van der Merwe; J van der Walt, A Price (S Hidalgo-Clyne, 74); R Sutherland (O Kebble, 64), F Brown (G Turner, 67), Z Fagerson (W Nel, 67); S Cummings (S Skinner, 64), J Gray; B Thomson, J Ritchie (B Cowan, 67), M Fagerson.

Yellow Card: Taylor 31-41

Referee: Matthew Carley (England)