Jack Conan: Marseille just a stepping stone for Ireland

Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

We’re seven days removed from Marseille and just two out from Ireland’s second Six Nations tie, against Italy in Dublin. Convention would have it that the narrative should have dispensed with France by now and shunted forward.

Forgive us another backward glance then.

The expectation is that the Azzurri will be accounted for while the quality of Ireland’s performance, and the historic nature of the scoreline, were such that last week’s opener is not the sort of occasion to be parked with a clichéd ‘next game’ focus.

There’s also the debate as to what that game says about Andy Farrell’s side going forward because opinions still differ.

There are those who feel it may well have been the most impressive display from the side since they wrapped up the 2022 summer series in New Zealand in Wellington.

Others were impressed to an extent but still thought Ireland played well below fifth gear. Former Scotland captain John Barclay, for instance, rated it a six-out-of-ten while awarding France a three.

There’s a chasm of thought between those two poles and it highlights both the quality of this Ireland team and the lofty expectations we have of them as they chase more history.

It’s certainly a debate to get us thinking and Jack Conan probably summed it up well when contemplating the comparison with Wellington when it was put to him this week.

"I think moments of it were that good. I don't know… It's very difficult to compare games because of different oppositions, different types of attack and ‘D’ and stuff like that, but that performance on Friday night was a brilliant stepping stone.

“We had already closed the book on the World Cup but it was great to just not back up a loss with another loss, to wipe the slate clean and now to build on it for the next few weeks to be exactly where we want to be.” 

That the 21-point defeat of the French was far from perfect is hardly unique either but this Ireland team has developed an enviable ability to roll with whatever punch comes their way and more often than not they land enough of their own to get over the line.

Winning 17 games on the spin up to that World Cup quarter-final tells us as much and, while they played below their best at that tournament, they were still within an inch of a semi-final after falling 13 points adrift and hamstrung with a malfunctioning lineout.

Go back to last week and they faced other adversity. There were highly questionable refereeing decisions with Karl Dickson penalising Jack Crowley for that high ball, awarding France an iffy try and giving a string of penalties against Ireland after the red card.

Fabien Galthié’s side came back to within seven points on three occasions despite their many and obvious deficiencies and difficulties but Ireland have long since learned to absorb in-game setbacks and concentrate on the next ball.

“A lot of it is down to the work that's done with Gary Keegan and as a collective,” said Conan. “Some lads were probably much further down their journey with that when it was implemented here however many years back.

“Some lads probably still have a lot of growth to do in that area, but it's one of those things you're searching for perfection with but it's impossible to do so you can only try to get better. It's probably one of these things we were really good at last weekend.

“Some things didn't go our way, some decisions didn't go our way, we had a lot of moments where it could have been easy to get a bit rattled. Start of the second-half, we go in with a good points lead but then conceded a few penalties, they notch up a few points.

“So it would have been easy to go in on ourselves but pretty much everyone's ability to be next-moment focused and be calm is something which has been vastly improved upon over the last few years. It's something we're constantly trying to improve on.” 

Conan struggled with this earlier in his career. Most people do. Games are riddled with ‘big’ moments and it can’t be easy to ignore the possible repercussions of a dropped ball or a mistimed tackle when thousands are watching and a trophy is on the line.

He’s still only 31 but players of his vintage talk regularly about the confidence that men a decade or so younger bring to the table no sooner are they in the door and the likes of Jack Crowley and Joe McCarthy epitomised that last week.

These are players entering a dressing-room and a culture that is more understanding of mistakes in the moment and able to shake them off. The theory goes that this will only make others younger again more comfortable with the high-stakes environment.

“It's something we've spoken about, lads that are a bit older who've said, 'I'd love to have been 21, 22 coming into this kind of culture and this type of camp', because it's vastly different from when we were that age or we first came in.”