Having lost in Twickenham, Joe Schmidt’s back-to-back Six Nations champions will be the first Irish team this century, the Six Nations era, to approach the tournament’s two-game final straight still without a win on the board.
There are mitigating circumstances: there are injuries… though there will always be injuries. A draw and defeats in Paris and London are disappointments, but not something to cause undue panic either. So maybe the most important aspect of the one-point-from-six situation we find ourselves in is the opposition.
Italy, so often a thorn to be plucked painfully from Ireland’s side early on in the Championship, are next up. And as the conventional wisdom goes, it’s a hell of a lot nicer facing a tired Azzurri troop late in the Championship as opposed to when they are fully primed and ready for week one destruction.
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Andrew Fosker / INPHO
Andrew Fosker / INPHO / INPHO
Facing Italy at this stage however, required more than just a win to satisfy. Victories have to come with style.
For a side on a run of four games without a win, swagger is a difficult mindset to suddenly slip in to.
“We’ve spent a long time building up our confidence so it is not going to go that quickly either,” says Andrew Trimble, before he scolds himself for wandering down the path of ‘what if’.
“We haven’t become a bad side, we have just become a side that hasn’t been quite as clinical as we want to be. If we’d been more clinical we could have won three games from three….
I hate when I hear people say that because, ultimately, we haven’t won any games and that’s the way it goes. You just gotta face that.
“We have to have confidence to know: we are happy that we are producing opportunities to score, we just have to hold onto the ball and be that bit more clinical. Just go through one or two more phases of play and the passes will stick eventually. Hopefully they will stick this weekend.”
That confidence and trust in the efforts they have put in so far will mean that Trimble and his team-mates won’t necessarily throw caution to the wind attacking Italy. The problem with facing wooden spoon contenders is that we’re right down in the pot with them.
“People want to see us take more risks, but they only want to see that if the risks pay off. You get criticised if you don’t take risks and criticised if they don’t go well,” says the Ulster wing.
“This is a slightly different pressure but you are never going to be able to avoid that pressure at any stage really.
There is pressure coming from the press, supporters and coaches but for ourselves there is a lot of pride to play for. We want to go out and give a good account of ourselves. We have shown glimpses of it but we just haven’t produced it for 80 minutes yet. We have let a couple of results slip by.
“Paris was really disappointing; our poorest performance so far this season. Wales, we showed glimpses. England, we showed glimpses. Paris, neither side… it was a boring game, I’m sure to watch, a boring game to play in and the weather ruined the day.
“But France aside, I think we’ve shown good potential of where we can go. We have to build on that and keep pushing our momentum and keep trying to get better week on week.”
That, at least, is a familiar target for a team in the unfamiliar position of reaching for the middle of the table rather than the very top.
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Trimble and Ireland aim to show more than glimpses of abilities
IRELAND ARE IN uncharted territory.
Having lost in Twickenham, Joe Schmidt’s back-to-back Six Nations champions will be the first Irish team this century, the Six Nations era, to approach the tournament’s two-game final straight still without a win on the board.
There are mitigating circumstances: there are injuries… though there will always be injuries. A draw and defeats in Paris and London are disappointments, but not something to cause undue panic either. So maybe the most important aspect of the one-point-from-six situation we find ourselves in is the opposition.
Italy, so often a thorn to be plucked painfully from Ireland’s side early on in the Championship, are next up. And as the conventional wisdom goes, it’s a hell of a lot nicer facing a tired Azzurri troop late in the Championship as opposed to when they are fully primed and ready for week one destruction.
Facing Italy at this stage however, required more than just a win to satisfy. Victories have to come with style.
For a side on a run of four games without a win, swagger is a difficult mindset to suddenly slip in to.
“We’ve spent a long time building up our confidence so it is not going to go that quickly either,” says Andrew Trimble, before he scolds himself for wandering down the path of ‘what if’.
“We haven’t become a bad side, we have just become a side that hasn’t been quite as clinical as we want to be. If we’d been more clinical we could have won three games from three….
“We have to have confidence to know: we are happy that we are producing opportunities to score, we just have to hold onto the ball and be that bit more clinical. Just go through one or two more phases of play and the passes will stick eventually. Hopefully they will stick this weekend.”
That confidence and trust in the efforts they have put in so far will mean that Trimble and his team-mates won’t necessarily throw caution to the wind attacking Italy. The problem with facing wooden spoon contenders is that we’re right down in the pot with them.
“People want to see us take more risks, but they only want to see that if the risks pay off. You get criticised if you don’t take risks and criticised if they don’t go well,” says the Ulster wing.
“This is a slightly different pressure but you are never going to be able to avoid that pressure at any stage really.
“Paris was really disappointing; our poorest performance so far this season. Wales, we showed glimpses. England, we showed glimpses. Paris, neither side… it was a boring game, I’m sure to watch, a boring game to play in and the weather ruined the day.
“But France aside, I think we’ve shown good potential of where we can go. We have to build on that and keep pushing our momentum and keep trying to get better week on week.”
That, at least, is a familiar target for a team in the unfamiliar position of reaching for the middle of the table rather than the very top.
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