Mike Catt purring over Ireland attack and predicts more to come

The team has morphed from one wedded to structure to one that opts for continuity and a degree of chaos under Andy Farrell and his attack coach

Ireland assistant coach Mike Catt.

Mike Catt has praised his back line for the “seamless” manner in which they have embraced the team’s more expansive style of play.

Ireland have morphed from a team wedded to structure under Joe Schmidt into one that opts for continuity in open play and a degree of chaos under Andy Farrell and the results have been applauded by friend and foe alike.

Farrell’s Ireland has yet to claim the sort of silverware and world ranking that Schmidt’s did for now, of course, but the side is undoubtedly travelling in the right direction as it looks to secure a Triple Crown and push France all the way for the title this weekend.

One of the most obvious and visible sides to this new approach is the sight of players who are not wearing a No.10 jersey on their back acting as first receivers and it has allowed the team to play a more multi-faceted game.

“Yeah, everybody is a ball player, everybody is connected,” said Catt, the team’s attack coach. “The attack is 15 players every single time we have the ball so we are very comfortable with the progress Bundee has made, Garry Ringrose, Hugo Keenan, standing in those positions. It’s almost been seamless for them.

“It’s just a way that we can play a quick game of rugby and play at a speed that we want to play and with an attack we want to play with. Ultimately, it gives Johnny or our (other) 10s an ability to take a breath sometimes and not be reliant on them all the time. It's worked, so far, really, really well but it's something that we will get better at and the guys will become more comfortable the more we do it."

That this is still a work in progress is clear given the issues the side has found in the last two games against Italy and England when passes have been forced and with the result that promising attacking threats have fallen by the wayside.

Go back further and the same point can be made for two of the team’s best performances in recent times, against New Zealand in November and Wales last month, when they also left a number of scores out on the field.

"Yeah, I think we'll take the four tries first and foremost,” said Catt of last week’s Twickenham haul when Ireland won 32-15. “Every team that comes out of the game thinking they should have scored an extra couple. It was just the manner in how we didn't score them really which is something that we've worked on.

“All in all, it goes back to staying calm and being able to see the bigger picture on the back of it so that’s very fixable. Everything that went a little bit awry last week is very fixable. That’s a sign of this team at the moment, how quickly we can learn our lessons, move on and drive the team where we want to go.”

If there has been one area of the game being played by Ireland that has really touched the soul then it is the sight of the forward interlinking with the backs in open play. Tadhg Furlong has been the poster boy in that regard but others are following suit.

“It's another area where we need to develop even more but the majority of the time the guys are very comfortable on the ball now, which is great, especially when the line speed is coming hard at them. There are still a few guys that struggle with it but, again, that's work-in-progress.

“I'd also like to say that our defence has been pretty impressive too, it's not just about the attack. Teams have only scored three tries against us in the whole competition and one of those was an intercept in Wales, so we've married both of them. It's not just our attack, it's very much so the same process as in our defence too.”

That defence will face a threat they can’t have foreseen earlier in the week given Gregor Townsend has opted to bench Finn Russell and replace him with Blair Kinghorn who will be starting at ten for Scotland tomorrow for just the second time.

His first was a rout against Tonga in Murrayfield last November.

Nominally a full-back who can play in most positions across the back line, Kinghorn will be tested like never before on his 31st cap and no better man to ask about him than Catt whose own career with England was spent swapping one double-digit jersey for another.

“I have watched some footage of Blair and he is a fantastic player. I think he has a good running game, he is very explosive, he has a hell of a passing game and if he gets the time and the space his kicking game is exceptional too.

“We would like to think that we won’t give him the opportunity to sit back and play the game in a dinner suit so it is crucial that we do get after him but as a rugby player and what he will do for that Scotland team it is massive so he is a big threat to us.”