ANDY FARRELL LOOKED severely chastened by his first defeat as a head coach, a 24-12 defeat to England that never looked like going his way.
Having been defence coach when Ireland suffered heavy home and away defeats to Eddie Jones’ side last year, Farrell began his tenure with back-to-back home wins in the Six Nations. The boost in confidence, coupled with the new boss’s push for ‘grit’ from Ireland led to expectation of a riposte to those two toothless performances.
Instead, Ireland went into the half-time interval 17-0. Asked on Virgin Media if he felt his side were shocked by England’s early intensity, Farrell said:
“It looked like that and I’ll take responsibility for that. That’s to do with preparation,” said Farrell.
“We’ve wanted a bit of grit, like we talked about in the last couple of weeks, but it was lacking a bit in the first half.”
While captain Jonathan Sexton nodded individual errors that gifted England a 14-0 head start, Farrell charts a few steps back from those moments to find reasons for the loss. Ireland were second best in almost every facet.
You can look at the first two tries, bounces of balls et cetera, but it comes from somewhere doesn’t it. It comes from the pressure and their intent.
“They were ferocious at the breakdown, they hit hard, carried hard as well. It’s the basics of rugby and they were on top in that regard.”
He adds: “I suppose we fired a few shots towards the end of the game when it was over. I suppose the scoreline flatters us in the end.”
While the head coach signals there was an issue with preparation, given how Ireland started the contest, he does not pinpoint a specific issue to blame.
Instead, he was left to lament how his side reacted to well-forecasted pressure from the World Cup finalists.
“It’s easy to look back, but you’ve got to deal with international rugby as the moments roll within the game.
“We compounded a few errors and didn’t know how to get ourselves back.
“Feeling sorry for ourselves a bit in the first half — compounding errors, then you start playing at 70% and that’s not good enough at this level.”
Need more than one playmaker in your back line. Need to play with speed and tempo if you are playing against superior physicality and finally you need to stop hero worshipping individuals who then can never be dropped or sacked.
good man Diarmuid….basics of the games are hands ..and we were shite at that today
@diarmuid mccarthy: Where was the one playmaker that we had? hopeless again!
@diarmuid mccarthy:
100%. It’s easy just to put it down to England’s physical superiority, but Ireland just weren’t playing with enough pace. A slow moving, predictable target is much easier to hit, and hit hard.
@diarmuid mccarthy: I’m sick of this superior physicality nonsense… pound for pound there was little or nothing between those two teams – but a massive difference in how they apply it. In attack we caught the ball standing still, they ran on to it with aggression. In defence, our linespeed was average, there’s was lightening as they grew into the game. At the ruck and lineout we passively let them have it, they scrapped for everything. We played like startled earwigs and they played with confidence. We sent an outhalf out strapped up who couldn’t kick and left a goal kicking scrum half on the bench. We picked senior players for the Twickenham cauldron and they bottled it… left youth out cause it would be too much! Take a leaf from France, pick the younger guys and go for it next time!!
@BMJF: Power isn’t all weight. Most top tier teams are more powerful than Ireland so why do we play such a Neanderthal gameplan based on power?? We produced a few freaks – David Wallace, Sean OBrien, Denis Leamy but apart from them we usually produce quick, athletic players with a brain. We need to then add a bit of skill and passing ability. We need at least two playmakers, preferably three in the backline to create space for Henshaw, Conway, Larmour and stockdale. Bashing holes won’t work anymore…we don’t have any freaks left .
Loving all the comments today. Ireland have gone from terrible to grandslam winners back to terrible in the space of a few weeks. New coaches will take time to bed in their ideas and players will take time to implement them. That’s not to say that mistakes weren’t made, with personnel selection in particular but they’ll be learned from hopefully. The one thing I’d like to see from here on in is a ruthless side to Farrell, if lads aren’t doing it on the pitch then drop em. There’s a few in the squad who are not playing well, some who it’s questionable whether they are to standard at all and some who are playing well individually.
@Jim Demps: I agree wholeheartedly. One thing in Farrell’s favour today. He brought on the bench early. Schmidt would have waited till minute 78.
@Brian Waldron: yeah absolutely, while there was mistakes made, there’s plenty of positives to take too, the style that mike Catt is trying to impose is evident and on a number of occasions they created space but it was individual errors that killed us. Poor day at the office no doubt but these things will happen with new coaching set up
@Jim Demps: I would have loved him to be more ruthless. I think Stockdale, sexton or Murray should have been pulled off after 25 minutes. The game was already lost at that point regardless.
@Jim Demps:
Healy Au revoir – not been at the races for a while now. I sincerely think IRFU missed a trick though not getting Mr. Lancaster to coach Ireland.
@Jim Demps: yeah it’s annoying having to scroll through so much drivel in the comments section for interesting angles from informed spectators. Whatever about how our halfbacks played today I was concerned with JVF and Ryan a little. JVF had no impact or no idea how to impact. That’s concerning. Also Ryan brought so much but he lacked the nuisance or “dog” that Itoje was. Hopefully more learnings for a lot of the younger players
@Brian O’Driscoll: jeez of all the players Ryan was one of the best. Just because he wasn’t up to the level of Itoje today should be no criticism. If you wanted to be pedantic you could say they were playing in slightly diff positions, Ryan and Kruis were the 5s and I’d say Ryan was the better of the two. The gap between the two 4s, Itoje and toner was quite something though
@Jim Demps: as I said Ryan brought so much but my hope is he learned a lot from Itoje too. Itoje was one of the players who really unsettled Ireland today from the first whistle.
@Jim Demps: who? Name them? Better still name team V France ?
What about something like…
1. Killer , 2. Kelleher, 3. Porter
4. Henderson 5. Ryan
6. Doris, 7. VDF, 8. Deegan
9. Cooney 10. Johnny (no choice complete with sticky tape)
11. Larmour, 12. Henshaw, 13. Ringrose (if fit – otherwise Aki Henshaw again)
14. Conway, 15. Addison
Badly Need to find a partner for Ryan and props to replace Healy & Killer.
@Jim Demps: aki was one of our best players today if not the best but he’s not a passing 12 and if we are trying to create width, space or just to move a backline he’s just not the man to do it.
England use a second playmaker and it causes all sorts of problems. It wasnt a coincidence that some of our best play was with Byrne and sexton on the pitch at the same time
@BMJF: that’s some nonsense
Lost the game to a better team but gifted 14 pts.
Sexton murray, while great servants need to be retired. Stockdale really weak, one more chance.
Go for broke with youth.
@Martin McKenna: we have a big problem at 10. Sexton is on the slide, natural enough due to his age, but he is still miles ahead of potential replacements. When it happened with rog, sexton already looked on his way to world class. Now we have Byrne, burns or carty, all pretty flawed players with a relatively low ceiling level. The fact that carbery can’t stay fit is a big concern because the next wave of 10s, Harry Byrne, frawley, casey and even Jack crowley are miles away from heineken cup level not to mind international
@Tim Magner: never suggested Cadbury, any of the Byrnes or Frawley who will come through will do the business
@Martin McKenna: I wasn’t totally disagreeing with you. I just don’t think we can afford to retire sexton yet. I wouldn’t retire Murray either but I’d definately give Cooney his shot now and see how he goes. In fairness the man should have started v scotland
@Tim Magner: typical, Ireland give him chance v Italy, no sir, don’t buy it.
@Martin McKenna: so what do you think, don’t play him v Italy because it won’t count?
@Tim Magner: hate to say it but the second best irish 10 was excommunicated to Perpignan last year and if he’d been allowed to stay at ulster it might’ve been easier to phase sexton out without a big drop in quality, also unfortunate for us that carbery keeps getting injured
@Martin McKenna: Agree, Sexton needs to be taken out of the team, would still hold onto Murray though. Start Cooney at 9, maybe give him kicking duties? Murray on the bench. Time to start Kilcoyne?Not excuse but Henderson massive loss, might be time to bring in Chris Farrell. Pity Carbery not around, byrne at 10 for me. Thats my tuppence worth anyway…
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@Tim Magner: May have to grab a guy like Frawley and fast track him.. he has all the attributes but unless Leo is throwing him in their for Leinster it’s hard for Farrell to do it. France can pick two half backs at 20/21, where’s our two? Either that or we just accept that it’s a mediocre transition phase for 2-3yrs til young guns emerge
@Tim Magner: he should have definitely started Cooney today given that Johnny clearly couldn’t kick… he had to know that before hand or he was just fooling himself. Silly stuff when Cooney a goal kicker gets left on the bench. When Henderson dropped out we lost a ball carrier and Dev had to come in but that strengthened the argument for adding Doris ….CJ, VDF, Doris backrow to get another effective carrier on the pitch but that was bottled too. Two early shocking errors in our own goal area gift England two tries but the pressure was building and the scores would have come anyway
@running man: Kilcoyne gives too many penalties away and is too old to be the future… where are the early to mid 20’s props?
@BMJF: yea I really like the look of frawley but sexton came onto the Irish team after starring in a hcup semifinal v munster, who were the top team in Europe at the time. He showed he had the balls for it. It’d be the equivalent of frawley going out and doing the business v saracens for leinster in a few weeks time, I’d love to see him get a shot
@running man: Doris should have come into back row with POM dropping out as soon as Henderson was lost to 2nd row .. we lost a ball carrier and Doris for POM would have created a replacement in that facet of game
@Tim Magner: so would I, he’s looks more than capable but unless Johnny and Byrne get injured in six nations I don’t see it happening sadly
@BMJF: as to young loose heads coming through, I think Loughman needs a look at. I don’t think there’s a better carrying prop in Irish rugby but again he needs to do it in a high pressure game. About Doris, I thought it was the right call to start him v Scotland & but for unfortunate circumstances he’d have started today. But after the Wales game throwing him in wouldn’t have been a good move, if we had still lost the call would have been why change a winning team, that lad is one of our future stalwarts
@Tim Magner: come on now Tim, if you’re laying the root cause of that debacle at Sexton’s door, not sure what you were watching. You need to look at the pack and the 9 first off… There is blame to go everywhere but saddling it on the 10 behind a desperately out of sorts scrum half and bewildered pack is a bit rich. Lots of soul searching to be done.
@Carmine Lorenzo: carmine I think you’ve read my comments all wrong. The original poster wanted sexton retired and I pointed out that he’s still a mile ahead of everyone else we have
@BMJF: I know Kilcoyne is no spring chicken, but for me a better option than Healy, he is a bit more dynamic.Sexton needs to dropped, give Byrne a run, or where is Carty? Earls for Stockdale on the wing. Wild one i know, maybe bring Crowley from u20′s into senior squad, prob going to be our 10 anyway at some stage. No harm to give him some minutes.Not sure if you can bring guys in or not, or do you have to stick with same squad for full competition
@BMJF: frawleys been involved in most of the HC run and has started a few pro 14 games now. We do need to do something as we don’t have options at 10. Ross B controls games well enough but kicks better than he passes and really doesnt take it to the line. Carbury needs a run of games without injury before he cad be considered as an alternative. Sexton time is almost over and today was his worst game for us but who’s going to replace him
@Chris Mc: without foisting too much pressure on the young lads head, Jack crowley looks potentially a serious player for the future. He’s come from bandon grammer, is not in an academy yet looks a physical unit. He looks an outstanding kicker from the tee and from hand. He’s had zero professional training but looks the best prospect I’ve seen in a long time. It’ll be interesting how munster manage him but he looks like he should be fast tracked and that wouldn’t be like us but I saw ntamack at u20 level and Crowley is bigger, tougher and looks a more natural 10. In ntamacks year carbonel looked the better 10
@Tim Magner: ok fair, but you said we’d a big problem at 10. I’m not so sure we have…I’ll reserve judgement on that til Cooney or someone else gets a well deserved shot at 9. Huge fan of Murray but he needs time out of the team til he can find his way again. We’ve more of an issue at 9 until the coach can recognise we need a change there, and there are valid options otherwise. Tough old day Tim, so frustrating.
@Carmine Lorenzo: our big problem is sexton is 34,if he was 26 it’d be happy days
@Carmine Lorenzo: a 9 is heavily dependant on the pack. I think Murray had an alright game but 6 out of the 8 ahead definitely didn’t. Thought Cooney did very well to recover from his early “mistake”. When a younger player can do that but the captain can’t it’s worrying.
I was lashed on here when people couldn’t criticise Joe Schmidt the #trustinjoe brigade, where no critisism was allowed. I heard one of the English players saying Ireland came into the game in form? Wtf? Falling over the line against a tooth less Scotland, average at home against a average Welsh team. The team need a complete urgent overhaul. No reason why Murray sexton O’Mahony even furlong Healy should feature again this six Nations play cooney Byrne Doris porter kilcoyne. Defense isn’t the problem , our attacking play is so predictable , one dimensional and outdated. Going backwards for most of the game with the ball. That’s if we managed to hold on to it for couple phases and didn’t box kick it away
@Bill Clay: O’Mahony was the only stand out player. Not sure why uer name dropping him.
Likes of Stockdale and Toner were way worse
@Paddy Waggon: I’d happily drop Stockdale , and toner was only starting through circumstance. It’s not so much dropping O’Mahony rather than give Doris his opportunity
@Bill Clay:
Players should be picked and dropped on form. No-one deserved to be dropped after the Wales game. Everyone deserves to be dropped after this game.So what do you do?
Murray was poor and Cooney should start the next 2 games. Maybe with McGrath on the bench against Italy.
Unfortunately Sexton can’t be dropped.
I have been hoping against hope that Stockdale would bounce into form. He has always been uncertain in defence, but his attacking prowess has offset that. Unfortunately, he just isn’t doing enough in attack now to secure his place.
To call his error today a schoolboy error would be charitable.
@Paddy Waggon: POM was stand out my arse! Ryan was the only member of pack who didn’t take a step backwards.
@BMJF: got to give CJ props for ragdolling Farrell and doing it legally
Stockdale needs to be dropped. Not to the bench, but off the squad. I wasn’t impressed with Cooney at all today, but the likes if Murray and Healy falling to second choice may give them the kick io the backside they need. Unfortunately, Italy are so poor we won’t learn anything from that game, but there are some big name players not turning up in big games. It’s pretty simple. Some others lile Stander,, Aki and Conway are now clear first choices in their positions. Carbet3is a huge loss as Byrne is nowhere near good enough for test rugby.
@Tomás O’Loughlin: SO MANY TYPO’S!!!!
@Tomás O’Loughlin: joke, Cooney is the man, Stockdale is weak physically and mentally, but mentally primarily.
@Martin McKenna: Cooney did a grand total of sweet f##k all today. What were you watching?
@Tomás O’Loughlin:
Every Ireland player in the starting line up was comprehensively outplayed today. Should we drop them all?
@Brian McAll: No. Have you read my comment?
We were s#@te but on the other hand only lost by 12 and England only got the four points. I’d be well annoyed if I was the England coach as that’s possibly going to cost them the championship. We on the other hand should go to Paris on 14 points and still in with a shout.
@Michael Garvey: we don’t deserve a championship after that shocking display and if that team plays in the French game I’ll cry!! We might have to play with more sticky tape on Johnny but Cooney,/McGrath, Doris, Deegan, Kelleher should start for starters. A CJS struggles at 8 against serious opposition.. he’s all heart but one dimensional. POM hasn’t done enough. Back row of Doris, VDF and Deegan worth a shot..
Bigger questions:
Who’s long term replacement for Healy & Killer as ageing? Who’s Johnny’s successor? Where’s the next 2nd row to partner Ryan?
@BMJF: a back row of Doris, deegan & jvdf looks about as lightweight as you can get in international rugby, they’d want to be playing behind a sa front 5. Doris to me looks the only one of those 3 with any serious physicality. A backrow of cj, leavy & Doris on the other hand could be a serious weapon if leavy comes back any way right
If the scoreline reflected the actual game, I think we would be looking at a different approach and gameplan from Ireland over the next 12-18 months. As it stands, I really don’t think anything has been learned from the last 3 games against England… They had the exact same high defensive line and we did the exact same thing, no invention, no nous to dink over the top and create something.
We need some form personnel changes and a horses for courses approach to games, we were fairly battered up front today and if you can’t see an England side coming with that intensity at home then there’s a slight bit of naivety in the coaching, maybe understandable given his experience
@John Flynn: talk about a scoreline not reflecting reality, we left 5 points out there!!!
Ah come off it. England didn’t have to do much in the second half. England didn’t even out muscle Ireland… there’s not that big a gap physically .. but England use their physicality much more effectively, at a greater pace in attack, greater linespeed in defence and play at a greater level of intensity all round. Much worse than being physically beaten up like last year, Ireland were totally outclassed, which is even harder to fix. Time to make changes and re-build with youth – Doris, Deegan and Kelleher to start for starters
@BMJF: if doris and Deegan are both in your starting backrow, who’s the third?
@Jim Demps: he better be good at the breakdown if deegan is playing
@Jim Demps: IF and it’s a big if, there are to be wholesale changes to our back row, I would like to see something along the lines of Jack O’Donoghue at 6, Connors at 7 and Doris at 8. Won’t happen and to be fair it probably shouldn’t happen based on the back of a loss at Twickenham. The problem with making wholesale changes against Italy is it’s very hard to gauge the benefits based on the opposition. We need to see today for what it is…. A horrendous performance against a good team. A big win against Italy still sees us going into the last game with some semblance of a chance at winning a championship. Very difficult to see that based off today’s performance though
@JJ’s Wattage: why would u drop our best player in stander?
@Jim Demps: I wouldn’t. Hence why I started with the big “IF” reference wholesale changes to the back row. I think the 3 guys I mentioned would make an interesting and fairly well balanced back row if changes were to be made. Likewise, POM is a fantastic lineout performer but I would like to see more of a threat to defences from our ball carriers. The fact we still play too much off 9, close into our rucks doesn’t help him here though so not sure if it’s as simple as a change of personnel.
@Jim Demps: I’d have to try VDF again with them to see what he brings in that line up but maybe there are other option at 7
@Jim Demps: standers efforts today are reminders of last year and the world Cup. Running into brick walls and getting up and doing it again and again, underhill made 21 tackles today most of them on stander. He needs help from a ball carrying 8 and he can be one of the best 6′s around. Being the best forward by running over the poorer opposition is great until a team stands up then its too much effort for no reward.
@Chris Mc: while their 7 is tackling cj he’s not going for the jackel, and it takes their best defender out of the tackling line. With a bit of creativity you could be running a big ball carrier at Ford. I’d agree another ball carrier could be put in the back row but it’s vdf I’d be taking out. He’s energetic and a tackler but in comparison, underhill tackles would cut you in 2. Does he add anything else at this level?
we just have no answer for how England play when their gameplan works, they just have immense linespeed, intensity and power and a strong kicking game and we just can’t seem to break that, was the same story as last year once they get up and running it’s game over.
Murray shouldn’t have come out for the 2nd half.
Cooney didn’t do much for his first 5 mins or so, but then showed glimpses of why he should be the preferred scrum half for France. He won’t though.
Useless
@Damian Mac An Bháird: very insightful.
It wasnt ” grit” they lacked. The front 5 replacements did well when they came on. Ireland ” won” the last quarter if that’s a crumb of comfort.
Play all the young lads against Italy and France I say.
What a load of Bo***×!!! They came out of the blocks at 150ph, with boot and bollix the agenda…and while our mob were processing it they suffocated us. That was when when we needed our leaders and there were none
It was shocking bad sexton and Murray need to be dropped now
Perhaps the problem isn’t the Irish gameplay, structure, player base or selection that’s the problem. Perhaps the pro14 detractors are right after all and it’s a soft league that can’t prep us for the more abrasive and/or skilled world teams?
@Simon Clarke: the Welsh ran the world champions to 3 points, actually did far better than the English. You may as well say that nh rugby is the problem seeing as they’ve only won one World cup
Application won that game for England and Senior Irish bottling it lost it. Our experienced players look mentally scarred from previous mailings & played like startled earwigs. We sent an outhalf out taped up who couldn’t kick goals and yet we had a superb goal kicking scrum half option on the bench if wanted to keep Johnny at 10. Ryan was immense but all around him were flailing. The early mistakes for two trys put us on back foot but no excuse. Is it time to Take a leaf from France’s book & totally rebuild with up & coming players in as many positions as possible?
…
If you lament grit in rugby , go play tiddliwinks…..a disappointing and empty explanation. I saw players out there putting in effort that would have done justice to the 300 at the Pass of Thermopyalae….so same question as at 3 .15 today were our leaders?
Job description. Go out and let them know you are there.. Pathetic response Andy