Time has long passed for Ireland to banish their lineout gremlins

Criticism of Ireland forwards coach Paul O'Connell will intensify unless lineout problems  are resolved. 

In Ireland's 20 games since the last World Cup, they've had an average lineout success of 86.3%. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Leinster’s URC tie at home to Sharks was just about done last month when Harry Byrne readied to kick a penalty to touch for one last attack. It was a nothing moment at the end of a routine win. Until the cameraman pitchside caught a close-up.

A short back and forth with Ryan Baird, garbled and indistinct as it was on TV, ended with Baird throwing his head back and uttering the f-word in what was interpreted as a despair brought on by fatigue at the fag end of a hefty 80-minute shift.

It wasn’t long before the clip was doing the rounds on social media.

“Oh, great. I actually get to clear that one up,” Baird smiled when asked this week. “So, we wanted to play a certain play, and I said to Harry, ‘can we run this? And he was like, ‘No, we don't have a loosehead’. And then I was like, ‘aw’ and everyone went wild.” 

If that’s one mystery put to bed, then a bigger, more perplexing question has still to be answered. Namely: why is an Irish lineout that was for so long a well-oiled spring for so much of Ireland’s attack now a clunky, squeaky hinge holding everything back?

The team’s success rate two weekends ago, against New Zealand in Chicago, was a risible 69%. That rose to a still unsatisfactory 82% last week against a Japanese side whose threat out of touch isn’t exactly feared at the highest level.

And these aren’t isolated numbers.

Go back to the 2023 Six Nations and the Irish lineout was so good that it could still function perfectly well with both hookers off the pitch injured against Scotland in Edinburgh and Josh van der Flier was left to launch the darts.

Just over six months later and they were coughing up six lineouts to the Springboks in Saint-Denis but somehow eking out a six-point win in an epic World Cup pool game. Two years later and these gremlins are still chewing the electrical wires and crashing cars.

The team is struggling in more than one area, but the first problem in fixing a problem is accepting it for what it is. So Baird’s quizzical response when it was suggested that this is an issue stretching back a bit too far now wasn’t what you want to hear.

“What do you mean ‘a couple of years’?” 

“Have they?” 

Ireland have played 20 times since the last World Cup and their success rate in the lineout in that time averages out at 86.3%. They have failed to breach the 90% mark 13 times, dipping as low as 60%, that 69% against the All Blacks, 70% and 71% on different occasions.

It’s just not good enough, even with three of their four best displays in that department coming against England and France. Interesting or otherwise, Ireland’s lineout has been second-best on the day for all of their five losses since the start of 2024.

Like other areas of concern, there isn’t one outlier of a pattern here that an FBI special cases team would easily identify. There are overthrows, issues with movement and lifts and other intricacies go into this most convoluted of restarts.

The sight of Ronan Kelleher putting a finger to his ear while preparing to throw one in against Japan led to the theory from inside the camp that a sleepy Aviva lunchtime crowd was somehow too raucous for the actors to get on the same page.

Spare us.

Baird leaned into that and went on to explain how a targeted roar from Tadhg Beirne to ‘listen to the call’ tuned him in to the frequency required after opening up with the same mistake out of touch as in the initial exchanges in Chicago.

Third time wouldn’t be a case of unlucky against the Wallabies. All eyes will be on Ireland’s lineout, including Australia’s who will test Baird’s insistence that the team’s drills and execution are actually quite simple despite the many moving parts.

Beirne is the on-field caller, but it is Paul O’Connell who is calling the shots through the week. Andy Farrell publicly backed the Munster legend and his players post-Japan, but the criticism of O’Connell will only intensify if this issue isn’t put to bed.

“Who’s been criticising Paul in this room? Paul’s brilliant,” said Baird. “Paul’s amazing. It's on us as players to do a better job to execute, he doesn't put a foot wrong. He's so meticulous in his detail, his plan.

“I was meeting with him [Monday] night at half-eight, as we were looking at lineout defense with Cian [Prendergast] and James [Ryan]. It's an absolute privilege to work with him, so I won't have a bad word said about him please.” 

Time for this to click if there aren't to be f-bombs aplenty.