Dan Sheehan settles right back in after lengthy absence

JOY: Ireland’s Dan Sheehan celebrates after winning with Mack Hansen. Pic: INPHO/Dave Winter

Put yourself in Dan Sheehan’s shoes on Saturday night, not long after ten o’clock local time.

The Leinster hooker hadn’t played for five weeks because of the foot injury suffered in the warm-up game against England in Dublin. South Africa had just taken the lead through Cheslin Kolbe’s try and the world champions were building an ominous dominance.

The stadium was heaving, the near-80,000 in the stands witness to and part of an electric occasion that hummed and crackled and the Irish lineout had been hounded all evening by Eben Etzebeth and his crew.

Rónan Kelleher lost his first four lineouts inside the opening dozen minutes alone. Ireland, as they have been wont to do under Andy Farrell, found a way to fix the leak but there was still water lapping around their ankles as Sheehan was sent into the engine room.

No pressure, man.

“South Africa are one of the best teams in the world as well, especially around the lineout, so we were expecting them to put our lineout under pressure,” he said after a momentous 13-8 win for the Six Nations champions. “They do it to every other team as well. The main one was not to let it rattle us.

“We came in at half-time and it was just trust our process, ‘we don’t need to change anything’, and we keep doing the same things. They’re obviously going to get it right a few times, like we get it right a few times. I don’t think it rattled us too much though we definitely needed to sort of get that momentum changed.” 

Sheehan settled in immediately. The first throw in was nailed, he was part of a scrum that won a penalty for an infraction against Frans Malherbe thereafter, and he played his role in an Irish reserve that did just about enough to negate the fabled and feared Bomb Squad and that 7-1 split.

It was like he had never been away and, while the experiences of both Kelleher and Sheehan will inevitably invite opinions on which of them should start against Scotland, it feels enough for now to be thankful that the latter made such a swift recovery given the fears harboured back in mid-August.

“Yeah, when I was coming off that pitch against England, I thought I was done. They made sure that every avenue was done and looked at to make sure I could get back and we haven’t had any setbacks at all, so everything is going really smoothly.” 

You couldn’t say the same for the game itself, for either side. Errors were forced time and again by an intensity that never lessened throughout the 80 minutes but the result is yet another win over one of the games big ‘beasts’ after all those fears that this was the team's Achilles heel.

Three times now in three games they have accounted for the Boks (twice) and France in between. Andy Farrell made a mission of his approach to squad-building this last four years and here was the indisputable proof of its worth against the world champions.

"Well, we knew that it was going to be a game of two halves, they'd bring on a fresh pack," said Sheehan. "But the plan was still the same, just made sure that the lads who came off the bench were providing energy and making sure they brought the lads who were doing the full 80 with them, making sure you don't give away a few penalties.

“But I thought our plan worked well. The lads who weren't playing did a great job all week of sort of presenting those South African pictures to us, so we knew what was coming. Obviously they had a few things that we hadn't seen, like we brought to the game as well. But I thought we did a good job of making sure all areas were marked, especially in those pressure moments on our five-metre line.”