Quick off the mark: James Ryan knows value of Ireland’s super starts

Ireland are preparing for a huge clash against Scotland this weekend.

PRESS SCRUM: James Ryan during an Ireland rugby squad media conference at the IRFU High Performance Centre at the Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Different sides develop different traits and Joe Schmidt’s Ireland seemed to go through a phase in and around their 2018 pomp when they specialised in key scores on the brink of half-time. Game-killing, heartbreaking scores.

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Jacob Stockdale’s chip-and-chase effort against England in 2018 springs to mind. A converted try that stretched the lead to 16 points, it made the Grand Slam safe and ushered in temporary thoughts of a record margin of victory in the head-to-head.

That didn’t materialise thanks to a late but forlorn English rally but Ireland had started that day with a Garry Ringrose score less than six minutes in and that habit of making an early mark has become a signature of the team under Andy Farrell.

They go to Edinburgh this weekend looking for a ninth win on the trot. They have scored first in six of their previous eight games, claimed the first try in seven of them, and recorded that first try inside the opening ten minutes on four different occasions.

You have to be up early to catch these lads out.

The spin-off from all this is a team that inevitably leaves opponents playing catch-up. All told, in their last 640 minutes of rugby - a spell going back to the defeat of New Zealand in the second summer Test - Ireland have trailed for a grand total of half an hour.

Italy had their noses in front for six minutes two weeks ago, France managed to engineer a smidgin of scoreboard daylight for 13 in the recent Aviva Stadium classic while Fiji got the jump on them for 11 on an off-day back in November.

They haven’t sprinted from the blocks every time. It took until the second half for Ireland to cross the white line against South Africa and Australia in November but even then they were the first of the teams to do it and they never trailed to either.

It’s too much of a trend to be a coincidence.

“I think particularly going away from home the first few rounds, the Millennium Stadium (sic) and the Olimpico, it's just part of our focus during the week,” said James Ryan. “Playing away from home, it's very important you start well. You take a bit of the belief from the opposition away, it was just part of the focus for the week.

"That's one side of it, but also it's part of how we put ourselves under pressure when we train: to not waste any reps, to not waste any minutes, to start well. Part of that is the breath work. We do a bit of that before we go out, before we train, to make sure everyone is nice and present, nice and grounded and we can be accurate then.” 

Ireland turn towards the next hurdle in exemplary shape. All 37 of Andy Farrell’s squad were able to train in Dublin yesterday and that would suggest that the Johnny Sextons and Tadhg Furlongs of this world are indeed in the picture for Murrayfield.

Previous visits have only amplified the importance of starting as you mean to go on.

In 2017, when Scotland last won this fixture, Ireland arrived at the ground 15 minutes behind schedule and, according to Joe Schmidt, were just as late to everything in the first half. They trailed by 16 points at one stage and eventually lost by five.

Two years later, and Conor Murray was opening the book with a 10th-minute try in a nine-point win. That act was repeated in an empty Murrayfield in 2021 when a Johnny Sexton penalty and Robbie Henshaw try in the opening eight minutes set the tone.

None of this will be news to Gregor Townsend who will understand all to well the benefits that Ireland have accrued from this pell mell preamble and the manner in which it sets them up to play off front-foot ball for the full 80 minutes.

The hosts will be equally desperate to avoid the sort of start they experienced in Paris two weekends ago when they conceded 19 points without reply to France and ultimately fell short of even a losing bonus point after a stirring comeback.

The occasion and the stakes only add to it this weekend. Achieve some sort of early ascendency and Ireland can dilute the fervour and dull the bagpipes around a Murrayfield craving rare silverware.

The opposite holds for the Scots, of course.

Added to all this is the looming elephant in the room that is the World Cup later this year. These two teams will share a pool along with South Africa’s reigning champions so Sunday really would mark the perfect place and perfect time to land an early blow.

Not that Ryan would admit to that.

“To be honest, this week is just about putting in a performance that we can be proud of and … go and win in Murrayfield. It’s going to be pretty special, it’s going to be an incredible atmosphere, they’re going to be very up for it, so all our focus is on this week.”