Mike Catt: 'Nothing fazes' inexperienced Jack Crowley
CATT'S OUT OF THE BAG: Assistant coach Mike Catt during an Ireland Rugby squad training session. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Italy week. The memories of Ireland cutting through the French defence in Marseille like soft Camembert still fresh in the mind.
Who better to dissect it all with than Mike Catt who finished up as attack coach with the Azzurri in 2019 and took up the same brief under Andy Farrell?
Ireland’s first three tries last Friday, scored by Jamison Gibson-Park, Tadhg Beirne and Calvin Nash, came from open field play. For Catt the greatest joy was in seeing work done on the training pitches in Dublin and Portugal being transferred to the biggest stage.
Was it perfect? Not by a street. That’s more of a positive than a negative as the tournament progresses. Catt was the first to admit that there is a “tonne” of stuff to work on but a five-try bonus point walloping of France in France was quite the start.
“People were talking about hangovers from World Cups and that sort of stuff, but it was great to see the boys bouncing back in and being able to perform to a level that was acceptable and produce some brilliant stuff.”
Central to so much of that was Jack Crowley who, in his first Six Nations start, gave an admirably composed performance although one that wasn’t without some blips in the form of a missed kick here or there from the tee or the hands.
People talk about players needing time in the shirt at this level. Catt knows Crowley's best is further down the road and there's no reason for that to be over a distant horizon if the 24-year old can continue to shrug off errors in real time and display an ability not to repeat them thereafter.
“It's something Andy has been driving over the past number of years. It's 'don't get in the way of yourself, don't worry about it, it's gone'. For a man with inexperience, to block it out like that is very good. Nothing fazes him, like a lot of the boys in the team.”
The performances by players like Crowley, Joe McCarthy and Calvin Nash against France all feed into the notion of a side that has made enough of a peace with the World Cup for it not to be a debilitating issue as they push forward.
This is no small thing given the enormity of the disappointment last October and the understanding of the opportunity they left behind with that quarter-final loss to New Zealand, but Catt’s own time with the group is approaching an end.
This summer’s tour to South Africa will be his last involvement with Ireland. He was circumspect about going into any detail on the reasons why when asked yesterday but, at 52, he isn’t quite ready to work on the golf handicap just yet.
“That would be so nice, wouldn’t it? I’m too young for that unfortunately. I think I’ve learned too much to run away from it.
“Listen, I’m one of those guys that is pretty much ‘in-the-moment’ type of person. I don’t really think too much about the future. So, I will love every second like I have for the last four years with this group and keep enjoying it.” That starts this week with the visit of his old team to the Aviva Stadium and there was encouraging news on the injury front with Peter O’Mahony, Hugo Keenan and Nash all faring okay after picking up minor bumps and bruises in the south of France.
Catt also gave a positive update on the progress of Garry Ringrose who sat out the Championship opener with a shoulder injury although he did not train yesterday and a decision on his availability will be revealed with the team tomorrow.
Munster’s Oli Jager has also rejoined the squad.
Ireland have beaten the Italians 14 times on the trot in the last ten years, they’ve crested the 50-point mark in four of the last five Six Nations meetings in Dublin, and nothing less than a win with some distance on the scoreboard is expected again.
That’s despite the improvement the visitors showed under new coach Gonzalo Quesada against England in Rome last week when, despite a three-point loss, they managed to make up in part for a disastrous showing at last year’s World Cup.
“For them to come back under a new coach and perform like they did, and still have that ambition and were brave in what they did in attack, and score some brilliant tries, some amazing tries, I think it’s all credit to the players.
“You watch them defensively too, they work so hard for each other, so, so hard for each other, especially in the scramble defence and stuff like that. Defensively they’re strong, they’re strong.
“Yeah, they have become… Is it a little bit more pragmatic? Maybe it just depends who they play against, but they’ve definitely got both sides of a game they can go to. So we’re well aware of that and we’ve got to combat that.”
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