BILLY BURNS MAY have been the social media scapegoat following Sunday’s Six Nations defeat to Wales but the voices that will matter most to him – those within the Irish camp – are saying all the right things.

Speaking after the game in Cardiff, head coach Andy Farrell, captain Johnny Sexton and Burns’ Ulster teammate Iain Henderson all backed the player to bounce back from his late error.

Defence coach Simon Easterby is singing from the same hymn sheet. When asked about Burns during his press briefing yesterday, Easterby said Ireland are more concerned about fixing the other areas of Sunday’s performance which let them down, rather than the miscued kick which stole the headlines.

“I think it’s incredibly tough when you feel like that is the moment that might have not given you the opportunity to win the game,” he said.

“But for me, it’s a mistake. You can look back at the game and there are plenty of opportunities for us to have won that game.

“Yes, it was a critical moment and yes, we have to be better at winning those critical moments and making sure we’re accurate, but we conceded two tries which I feel we should have avoided. We conceded penalties, which were definitely avoidable, and to put something like the winning or losing of a game onto that one moment is wrong. 

“I believe that he is massively upset about the situation and his lack of accuracy in nailing the kick. We would certainly want him to try and get to the five (metre line) if he can, because it makes such a difference to the quality and the effectiveness of that maul or the play that is off that, so certainly we want him to have the confidence to go for that if that situation happened again.” 

As defence coach, Easterby is understandably more concerned with how Ireland conceded two tries to a Welsh team which enjoyed just 36% possession and 32% of the territory.

“I guess a little bit of communication (could have been better). There were so many decisions that the players had to make in lots of different scenarios. But ultimately we all feel that we had the correct numbers and on both occasions had we made a different decision, the outcome would have been different. 

“We have to make sure we create the environment and the scenarios to make sure that (when) players find themselves in those compromised positions they make a good decision and they come out on the other side with a solution to those situations.

Ireland coaches Simon Easterby and Paul O'Connell in Cardiff on Sunday. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO

“Part of it is learning and making sure we don’t make that same mistake twice or as a team that we work that little bit differently to try and prevent that happening, but also it is creating an environment that allows us to do that.”

Easterby recently switched his focus to Ireland’s defence following Paul O’Connell’s appointment as forwards coach. In terms of his defensive philosophy, he isn’t trying to rip up the script.

“Probably like all other defence coaches you want to try and win the ball back, and if you can’t win the ball back you want to slow the opposition ball down,” he says.

“I don’t think that’s any different to any other defensive coach. We’ll all have, I guess, slightly different tactics for individual games and potentially for individuals within those games.

“But essentially it’s about trying to win the ball back first and foremost, and being able to attack from opposition turning the ball over is often some of the best attack ball to have, because it’s unstructured. They’re in a different mindset, they have to switch from attack to defence and I think that’s probably no different from any other team.

“Outside of that it’s making sure that you force the opposition to either commit more numbers to the contact or slow it down enough to give them no other option than to give the ball back in a different way.”

Ireland know a win against France this weekend is crucial if they are to have any chance of winning this Six Nations. For Easterby, the task at hand is to formulate a plot to restrain one of the most exciting and unpredictable attacking sides around. 

“They have good footwork in the line, they have got guys with serious pace, they have got forwards that can carry into tight spaces but are still able to win collisions and offload then.

“It does make it in one sense, a challenge, but in another sense it’s something that guys actually get really excited about and I guess there’s a little bit of predictability about it because you know it’s going to come, but what we have to be able to do, to counter that, we have to be really good ourselves, making sure that we don’t offer soft opportunities like we did at the weekend.”

Yesterday’s squad update saw Ireland call Leinster’s Jack Conan into the squad, with Gavin Coombes returning to Munster. Easterby explained the thinking behind the decision to release Coombes, confirming the Munster backrow isn’t carrying any injury.

“It was an opportunity for us to see him up close. There are lots of good reports about him as a person, as a young man making his way through the professional ranks. But until you get the chance to work with somebody, you’re just not sure yourself. I think it was just a great opportunity for us to get him involved and work with him, get to know him a little better, and find out a bit more about him.”