Jacob Stockdale looking forward as he slots back into Ireland's back three

BIT BETWEEN HIS TEETH: I’m really confident, all I can base it on is this week’s training. It’s been really good. I’ve got a lot of touches on the ball, which is exactly what you want as a winger, says Jacob Stockdale, seen here in the Nations Cup clash with Scotland. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile:

THERE are no luxury players anymore, regardless of the sport. Creative talents don’t get a a free pass when it comes to the more mundane, defensive arts anymore but there are times when the balance between this yin and yang is lost and the natural order of things is polluted by too many coaching badges and practise cones.

Opposites may attract but a man of Jose Mourinho’s tactical conservatism taking over the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, clubs with fine notions about their attacking traditions, has always attracted the whiff of discord.

Likewise, watching Lar Corbett chase Tommy Walsh around Croke Park in an All-Ireland semi-final nine years ago felt like some bizarre experiment. A practical joke or maybe just a wilful act of ignorance: as if someone had acquired a Ming vase then used it to hold umbrellas in a hallway. There has been more than a touch of that with Ireland in this Six Nations. Four rounds down and it seems as if every conversation to do with the wings has flirted with what the opposition has been doing with the ball and what Ireland’s wide boys have done to counter.

More like piano shifters than piano players.

Ireland’s wingers have contributed just the one try, Keith Earls’ last-minute effort against Italy. Add Hugo Keenan’s score in the same game from full-back and it still doesn’t make for amazing reading from the back three.

No other country has reaped so little from what is supposed to be such a profitable department. Even Italy have mined three. Wales, for all their condescending critics, have managed the most with eight, half of them courtesy of Louis Rees-Zammit.

If the Gloucester back’s efforts have summed up Wales’ campaign then James Lowe’s defensive limitations have gone a long way to shaping Ireland’s and Keith Earls caught the prevailing wind when summing up his own tournament earlier this week.

The Munster veteran spoke about his limited involvements, the lashing rain and how winter isn’t a great time to work in his particular department in this country. “It would be nice to get some ball in attack as well and we’re not far off it,” he said.

It all brings to mind the story, true or not, about the 1992 Five Nations when Simon Geoghegan is reputed to have spent the entire campaign out on the tramlines without receipt of a single pass in an attacking position.

Jacob Stockdale will make his first contribution to this conversation today.

Back from a knee injury after two months out, the Ulsterman has scored 18 tries across his 33 caps. Dan McFarland, his provincial coach, has described a player with ‘the bit between his teeth’.

Let’s hope Ireland give him something to bite on.

“I’m really confident,” Stockdale explained after being named in the starting XV for the visit of England to Dublin.

“All I can base it on is this week’s training. It’s been really good. I’ve got a lot of touches on the ball, which is exactly what you want as a winger.

“Hopefully we can translate this weekend what we are doing in training into the game. From talking to the guys, we haven‘t done that in the last few weeks when we’ve been getting those opportunities on the edge, trying to release those one or two passes.”

Lowe may be the one to have made way for him but the 24-year old has noted how his Leinster colleague looks to hover around the half-backs in search of work on those occasions when ball is scarce and he hopes to incorporate some of this into his own game.

He can sympathise with the difficulties Lowe has had, not just in the narrow confines of his own defensive channel on the field, but off it where the criticisms and even bile can cascade without regard for a player already feeling raw post-game.

For all his brilliance going forward, especially when he broke into the Ireland side, Stockdale consistently found himself in the dock for his own defensive efforts when it came to the unforgiving court of public opinion. The judgements can be cruel. Penal.

“Yeah, definitely. I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve been on a little bit of scrutiny like that before. Yeah, look, it’s tough for him. In international rugby, and especially on the wing, any small mistakes that you make are magnified on the wing as opposed to any other position.

“Unfortunately for Lowey there were a few opportunities in the game that didn’t go his way. It was one of those ones that if they had gone his way he would have had a pretty good game. It’s a frustrating place to be and I have definitely been there before.”

Stockdale’s strike rate has slowed significantly since the 2017-18 season when he claimed more tries (10) than he played games (9) for Ireland but it’s no bad thing that he makes his return to the international stage as a lesser man than the one we knew.

His layoff gave him time to think and the answer he found was interesting.

“I came to the conclusion that my game isn’t exactly going to be about running over the top of lads. It’s trying to find soft shoulders and going round fellas. I figured, I was 103/104kg at the start of my injury. Even if I was 98, 99 kilos, I’d still be heavier and bigger than the majority of back-three players in world rugby.

“It made sense when I thought about it that way to slim down a bit. I’ve not decided how far I’m going to slim down yet. I’m sitting at 98, 99 at the moment and feeling good. I’ll see how far I go but that was the reason anyway.”