AS IRELAND GATHER ahead of their autumn international fixtures, Andy Farrell and his squad have allowed themselves to look a little further down the line than usual.
The squad met up this morning ahead of a run of three home internationals, staring with the visit of Japan next week, before New Zealand and Argentina make the trip to Dublin later in November.
First and foremost, the ambition is to build some consistency, something which captain Johnny Sexton touched on a number of times during this morning’s virtual media event to launch the Autumn Nations Series.
“I think it’s a big series of games,” Sexton said.
Since Andy’s come in we’ve had some great performances and we’ve had some average performances, so for us it’s about getting that consistency. The level of consistency where you don’t see us going up and down, you see a standard that we want to set with Japan being first up, and then continuing that for the two games subsequently.”
Ireland head into this block of games looking to build on a run of five successive wins, but they are also aware of the bigger picture.
Two years out from the next Rugby World Cup, France 2023 is already very much on their minds.
“That’s on the horizon. We have spoken about that, that we have a two-year bloc ahead of us and how we can go into that tournament in the best place we can be and full of confidence and ready to take on the world,” Sexton continued.
We spoke about that and that bloc starts now. We want to see continuous improvement and consistency that everyone is proud of. The focus is all on Japan now to get off on the best foot possible.”
The out-half admits it’s a different way of thinking, given the squad are used to keeping their focus on the short term. The next week. The next game. The next opponent.
“Well there is a difference already because we’ve mentioned the World Cup two years out. We’ve sort of put it on the radar which we’ve never done before, certainly since I’ve been involved.
“We talked about the World Cup the summer of, and we’ve always been focused on what’s in front of us. And we still are focused on what’s in front of us but I suppose you can see through the group the young fresh faces and the younger generation coming through, and why shouldn’t it be (in our thinking) – it’s the biggest thing you can do in the game and everyone wants to get there and everyone wants to do well in it.
“It’s great to have it there in the back of your mind and it’s something to strive for because if you view it as a journey, there is always that end point that you can strive towards.”
Sexton was asked how that shift in mindset sits with him as captain.
“It’s great. You have to be open-minded enough to do things in different ways. I like it. It’s what other countries do. You can see it in their selections.
“But we have a duty that we want to win games now as well. I think every country has to find that balance. That’s not up to me, it’s up to the coaching staff.”
Sexton also confirmed that he is on track to feature against Japan on Saturday week, having overcome a hip injury sustained in Leinster’s win over Scarlets on 16 October.
“I just had a little niggle in my hip over the last couple of weeks, but good to go.
I trained yesterday, trained two days before that, and yeah, all good. So I’m ready to train tomorrow.
“We’ve got meetings today, we just met up this morning and I’ll train fully this week and next week and hopefully lead into Japan.”
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Although there is mention of green 6 dropping a shoulder in to gold 10 after Earls attempts to ground the ball there is no mention of gold 10 firstly grabbing him back by the neck as he attempts to ground it. Should this not have led to a penalty try and also anther yellow card?
More great analysis , exvellent reading
I thought this ref wad really solid in the first half. Our have double the yellows in the context of them giving away double the penalties was ridiculous. And that we got a first infringement yellow to Healy when they were allowed multiple infringements on the line, and us getting a deliberate knock on penalty after they had deliberately knocked on twice was crazy.
I think on a different day POM would have had two pens and a yellow card given against him – it goes to show how much people overreact (either way) to one performance – the devil is in the detail.
Great analysis.
Would be good to get a summary as well at the end.
@Andrew Hurley: summary, there are definitely times where either side could feel slightly hard done by, but overall the match was reffed quite well. And refereeing in general was much better this week and much more consistent than last week across all games.
I like the tone of this article . The assessment given by your Ref was very fair. However the variance between Southern Hemisphere ref on Yellow/Red cards differs significantly from our Northern refs. Especially when leniency is given to the home teams during current tours. The red card given to the French 15 was probably a bit harsh and did seriously effect the result while a similar tackle by an Aussie barely scraped a yellow card. Consistency is all we want please
I was confused by this:
“When the ball leaves the hooker’s hands the lineout is over.”
Law 18, sections 36 and 37 seemed to disagree:
36. The lineout ends when:
The ball or a player in possession of the ball:
leaves the lineout; or
enters the area between the touchline and the five-metre line; or
goes beyond the 15-metre line.
A ruck or maul forms and all of the feet of all of the players in the ruck or maul move beyond the mark of touch.
The ball becomes unplayable.
37. Other than by moving to the receiver position if that position is empty, no lineout player may leave the lineout until it has ended. Sanction: Penalty.
The answer, I think, is in 28.d:
Leave the lineout so as to be in a position to receive the ball, provided they remain within 10 metres of the mark of touch and they keep moving until the lineout is over.
Get a life son , it’s over and done with, move on
@Tom Gorey: jesus, don’t click the bloody article if you don’t find this interesting, thereare billions of things you won’t find interesting. I find this level dissection fascinating, so do many others.
@Conor Paddington: Dont feed the trolls Conor. Plenty of football articles to bait.