Time for honesty as Paul O'Connell's lineout woes linger

RUMBLED: Jack Conan pinches this All Black lineout at Soldier Field but New Zealand enjoyed superiority out of touch far too often for Ireland’s wellbeing in Chicago. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

The rain that for most of the week had been forecast to arrive right on time for Saturday’s Soldier Field get-together belatedly swept its way into Chicago’s downtown in Sunday’s early morning hours.

It slickened the streets for thousands who descended on Grant Park for the Hot Chocolate Run, which sent runners off around 7.30am. Ireland were the only team to experience Chicago under grey skies and in a dampened mood and that felt about right. Scott Robertson’s All Blacks had departed across the Atlantic on a chartered plane in the hours after victory Saturday night. Bound for Edinburgh in what Ardie Savea joked post-match was ‘Razor’s private jet’.

Ireland’s return trip was scheduled on a Sunday evening red-eye so they lingered amid the drizzle with so much to ponder. Front of mind, top of list, most pressing of priorities is surely the lineout. All this talk of take-offs and landings doesn’t feel like the right terminology to accompany a set-piece which has been barely air-worthy for far, far too long now.

Paul O’Connell, the Ireland assistant coach with responsibility for the lineout, had spoken in the build-up to the Stateside rematch with the All Blacks about wider inconsistencies hindering Ireland over the last 12 months. But zoom back in on the lineout specifically and its only consistency is its unreliability.

Saturday started as it would go, as it has done for some time — horribly. Before the weird Soldier Field clocks had even turned from 00 to 01, Ireland were offered the chance to make good on Dan Sheehan’s Captain’s Run confidence that his team could find both the solid start and a reliable set-piece they’d prioritised. Instead they served up something pitiful.

Irelands first lineout yesterday looked like a Junior 3 effort where they sorted out the calls 5 minutes before kick off.

Makes sense when you look at the gametime of those involved this season

Sheehan - 35 mins
Porter - 64
Baird - 240
Ryan - 80
Beirne - 68
Furlong - 112 pic.twitter.com/yxMxfM7mUr

— Jim Demps (@jim_demps) November 2, 2025

Andrew Porter and James Ryan didn’t even get the chance to lift Ryan Baird off the ground as Sheehan’s dart sailed past and Tadhg Furlong saw the ball go through his desperate grasp. Confidence in the collective? Gone in 57 seconds. From there it didn’t get much better. Ireland would end the day with just a 69% success rate on their own throw, 11 of 16, a few of the successful ones which push up that number far from smooth either.

We have enough body of evidence to say that that this long-term volatility is now both emboldening opponents to go at the Irish lineout with relish and, at the same time, causing a creeping dread to filter into Ireland’s effort. When the first one fails so miserably, confidence drains. Some of the worst failures have an awful habit of arribing at pivotal times of a contest too.

“Ah, I suppose people are only human,” said Andy Farrell afterwards. “But at the same time, we work hard on not letting that type of stuff affect us. So, there's one thing for sure, the New Zealand defensive lineout has been top drawer for a long time now so that's always going to be part of it. We need to look at ourselves at us, first and foremost.” 

It is O’Connell who arguably needs to look most inward. His initial success with that area and others after joining the ticket has faded and the malfunctioning lineout is having a huge impact on what has become an insipid attack. Saturday was Ireland’s first time in seven years to go through 80 minutes without a single line break. Stark.

“It’s frustrating for us. It’s something we pride ourselves on is winning good ball so that we can launch our attacks on,” said Sheehan afterwards. “We just didn’t get into our flow today in a lot of times. It probably fed into the game in that we weren’t able to stack momentum. It’s definitely something we need to look at and try to find our flow again.” 

A problem area at times during the 2023 World Cup and certainly since, there’s a view that were the coach in charge of it not a beloved Irish icon as O’Connell is, there would be sharper criticism and perhaps calls for change.

There was small mitigation in the loss of Beirne but James Ryan and Iain Henderson are both veterans and neither found success. Ryan Baird was the bright spot on both sides, stealing two All Black throws.

“Obviously, losing Tadhg after three minutes, it's going to throw a bit of a spanner in the works,” observed Baird. “But we'd like to think we'd be able to not let that affect us as much as it did. They sensed there was a hesitation in some lineouts and they capitalised on it.” 

When they do get back home, O’Connell will have limited time to dig into what, yet again, went so wrong. Japan arrive for an lunchtime Saturday showdown before Australia and South Africa follow.

Asked about the importance of learning from defeat, Farrell replied on Saturday night: “You need to be brutally honest because if you not, then you're wasting an opportunity.” 

The time for Ireland to be brutally honest about O’Connell’s struggles has surely come. Answers are overdue.