Ronan Kelleher dismisses hangover theory as Ireland look to move on from Chicago

Ronan Kelleher says Ireland’s Chicago collapse was self-inflicted, rejecting the idea of a Lions hangover and calling for better execution ahead of facing Japan.

Ronan Kelleher rejected suggestions that Ireland's lineout should be stripped of its more complex elements. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Talk of a perceived British and Irish Lions hangover won’t quieten on the back of last Saturday’s effort in Soldier Field. Fourteen of the Ireland players who featured in Chicago had toured Australia over the summer.

That the team disappointed last weekend is obvious. Why it happened involves more debate. Was it a continuation of a gradual slip in standards? Or was it a rustiness occasioned by those Lions duties and the lack of game time those players had in the weeks since?

As an argument, the hangover take is far too simplistic.

Those involved Down Under managed varying amounts of game time. Ronan Kelleher, for instance, played 219 minutes over the course of the tour, all of them parcelled out in doable parcels over a long period of time.

His longest shift was just 50 minutes so Kelleher was always going to bat away the hangover theory when it was put to him in the team’s Abbotstown training base ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Japan in the Aviva Stadium.

“Obviously it wasn't what we wanted. We went there with a plan and we didn't execute it but I don't think there was a hangover really. It was more just us not doing our jobs to the best for our ability. On the day we weren't good enough.” 

Ireland weren’t perfect through the first hour but they did have the game within their grasp at that stage before a final quarter collapse that gave the lie to the quality the squad could bring off the bench in Chicago last time out.

Kelleher was one of three Lions in reserve and they were joined by Caelan Doris, Iain Henderson, Craig Casey, Sam Prendergast as well as Test rookie Paddy McCarthy. If the game was already slipping away before the replacements were unloaded then they didn’t arrest anything either.

“I came off the bench, I was part of that. It was difficult out there, we just didn’t get our dead stops, we didn’t manage to do what we said we were going to do which was to get two-man shots, slow up their breakdown with dominant collisions.

“And we just didn’t manage to do that. And then obviously once they got a bit of momentum on us they managed to keep the foot on the throat and we just couldn’t wrestle that momentum back.” 

To be fair here, Kelleher could have grasped at a few excuses.

Ireland dealt well with the absence of Tadhg Beirne when down to 14 for 20 minutes in the first-half but Kelleher disputed the possibility that the team paid for that shortfall when push came to shove at the back end of affairs.

And the Leinster hooker was quick to state that the failure of the replacements to make an impact last week was down to their shortcomings as individuals. Not enough two-man tackles to curb the influence of runners like Ardie Savea and Wallace Sititi.

Not that this was the only shortcoming on the day. Ireland shipped water in all sorts of areas against the All Blacks, none washing away their plans to a more detrimental extent than a lineout that malfunctioned time and again throughout the 80 minutes.

Here again, Kelleher’s focus was individual rather than collective. It’s an admirable take and chimes with Andy Farrell’s ‘no excuses’ approach but there is an argument that the lineout could be stripped of some of its complexities as they work through these issues.

Again, Kelleher isn’t so sure.

“With the lineout, with the quality of defences nowadays as well, you need that speed of movement, the speed of transition into the lineouts, just to bring a bit of tempo to it.

“It’s more so individually, making sure everyone's across their detail, making sure that we're really nailing that individual process, but making sure we're getting max jump, max lift, max throw as well. So it's just a combination of all three.”