Donal Lenihan: All about the process as Andy Farrell's Ireland continue to meet challenges

The national side face into a hectic few weeks that will test their progress.

Wed, 02 Nov, 2022 - 06:30

Process is a word that anyone with a remote interest in following professional sport has become accustomed to over the last decade.

Barely a post-match interview goes by now without someone mentioning a slavish devotion to “sticking to the process” in terms of the way teams go about breaking down the opposition and implementing their game plan.

On a wider scale there is a clear process involved in the way management teams minutely plan and build their way towards major tournaments like a World Cup. Having taken over the reigns as Irish head coach on the morning after Ireland crashed out to New Zealand at the quarter final stage in Japan, everything Andy Farrell has done since is with next year’s tournament in mind.

The pandemic severely restricted his early plans with tours to the Pacific Islands and Australia having to be shelved. Building the culture within a group is difficult when you're constantly walking on eggshells in a Covid-restricted hotel, confined to the parameters of a team room with little or no contact with the outside world.

Yet despite the many challenges it became clear, despite a slow start, that Farrell was changing the way Ireland were going about their business, on and off the field, from the Joe Schmidt era. Players thrived in a more relaxed environment and last November’s exciting window of international activity signalled a coming together of everything Farrell and attack coach Mike Catt had been working on over the previous eighteen months.

Perhaps it was the return of full houses, with fans thrilled to experience once again the adrenaline flow that attaches to big games against the likes of New Zealand, but the Aviva rocked throughout a captivating trio of games against the All Blacks, our World Cup conquerors Japan and old rivals Argentina.

Convincing wins over all three would have been enough to send the fans home delirious. The fact that those victories were accompanied by a freshness and adventure in Ireland’s attacking style, incorporating an improved skill set from all our forwards that enabled them to act as decision makers within a more adventurous and less predictable style added further to the feel-good factor.

Ireland registered 142 points and 19 tries across the three tests. Equally impressive, given their exhilarating approach with ball in hand, was the fact that, on the other side of the ball, they only conceded four tries and 32 points across the entire series.

A Six Nations campaign that delivered four wins from five served to confirm the progress being made as Ireland continued to tweak their attacking approach. Losing 30-24 to eventual Grand Slam winners France at the Stade de France was no more than a minor blip on the road. After all, the French revolution under Fabian Galthie, Shaun Edwards and Raphael Ibanez had started a lot earlier than the Farrell plan.

With the backbone of the Irish game plan based broadly on the Leinster approach and personnel, the defeat of Stuart Lancaster’s men to the Blue Bulls and La Rochelle in the semi final of the URC and Heineken Champions Cup final resulted in a dark cloud hanging over the expanded Irish squad heading to New Zealand for the most challenging Irish tour of the professional era.

Two games against the Maori All Blacks shoehorned between three tumultuous tests against the full All Black side would ask serious questions of a touring British and Irish Lions squad. When Ireland lost the opening two games the tour could have come off the rails, especially given the injuries and covid cases impacting on the group in their first ten days on the North Island.

In adversity, the best teams rally and show their true character, something the Irish squad achieved in spades. Key to that was the leadership, direction and inspirational presence shown by Farrell who is developing a “no excuse” culture within the entire set up. History shows that Ireland not only recovered from those early setbacks but went unbeaten over the remaining three games.

Of huge importance was the victory, hewn in demanding conditions in Wellington when Ireland’s reserve troops eked out a brilliant win over the Maori at the second time of asking. With the senior side having delivered a first ever Irish win over New Zealand on home soil the previous weekend in Dunedin, everyone within the squad grew a few inches since leaving Dublin.

To deliver in even more emphatic style in the deciding test in Wellington’s Cake Tin in the series decider, given everyone was expecting a massive New Zealand backlash, was proof positive that this Irish side were the real deal.

The genie is now out of the bottle and current World Champions South Africa are under no illusions of the task facing them at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday in what promises to be a fascinating contest.

The fact that the Springboks are led by two men in Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber, who made such an impact on their all too short reign at the cutting edge of Munster rugby, adds further intrigue to this test.

In so many respects, the wheel has come full circle. Ireland haven’t played South Africa since Schmidt’s charges filleted the tourists with a comprehensive 38-3 win in Dublin in November 2017. Erasmus and Nienaber travelled up from Limerick for that match, sitting together in the West Stand.

What they witnessed that day shocked them. The Springboks were an embarrassing mess. Listening to the exasperated responses from the large South African contingent that travelled from far and wide for the game, the Munster coaching ticket felt compelled and obliged to address the humiliating slide of Springbok rugby.

History has shown how that defeat ultimately sparked the SARU into dramatic remedial action which ultimately led to Erasmus and Nienaber departing Limerick in controversial circumstances. Their calling at the Aviva Stadium proved the catalyst for a Springboks revival which reached a crescendo in the 2019 World Cup final against an England side that had demolished New Zealand seven days earlier. An intoxicating mix of power, set piece physicality and pace out wide proved too much for Eddie Jones’s men to cope with.

Having been part of the Irish setup that saw the team peak a year out from that World Cup after delivering a Grand Slam, a series win over the Wallabies in Australia and a superb triumph over New Zealand in 2018, Farrell is better placed than most to learn from past failures.

His experience along with Lancaster as part of an English coaching ticket that failed to emerge from their pool at the 2015 World Cup has also shaped his thought process. With those crushing lessons absorbed, Farrell is leaving no stone unturned in his bid to deepen the pool of players available to him for next years sojourn in France.

Taking on those additional games against the Maori All Blacks last summer imposed huge demands on his management team but the rewards were worth it. Determined not to leave it at that, Farrell pushed through the recent Emerging Ireland trip to South Africa, knowing that he was drawing the wrath of all the provincial coaches on him.

No bother, Farrell has never been one to shy away from a challenge. Having his coaching ticket working with the next layer of young players, seeing how they train and respond to being taken out of their comfort zone was possibly even more valuable that watching the players perform across the three games.

By taking on another game against a strong New Zealand A side at the RDS on Friday night, coupled with Munster’s eagerly anticipated clash against the Springbok A side in Pairc Uí Chaoimh next week, Farrell is exposing an entire cohort of young players to a standard of opposition that will ask different questions to what those players experience in the URC.

To succeed in France next year, Farrell also has to solve the perennial dilemma as to his pecking order behind Johnny Sexton at out half. Remember New Zealand needed a depth chart of four No 10’s to win the 2011 World Cup in their own country.

Farrell also needs more depth on both sides of the scrum behind starting props Andrew Porter and Tadhg Furlong. Second row is potentially problematic when delving beyond James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne and the injury prone Iain Henderson. At least in that department the likes of Tom Ahern, Joe McCarthy, Kieran Treadwell and Ryan Baird have all made positive impressions of late even if Baird looks better suited to the back row.

The next three weeks is as much about adding names to the Irish depth chart as it is about chasing a clean slate against South Africa, Fiji and Australia. We also get to chance to run the rule over all the World Cup contenders in a packed month of sizzling test activity.