A BONUS POINT in the bag, a seven-day turnaround, and what looks like a clean bill of health.
Andy Farrell will surely have woken this morning with some confidence about Ireland’s Six Nations trip to Paris next weekend. Les Bleus should get up and running themselves with a big victory over Italy today but Ireland appear to be in a good place.
Yesterday’s 29-7 win against Wales was an ideal start for Farrell’s team in the 2022 championship. The Irish pack dominated, their attack tore Wales apart at times, the defensive effort was largely solid, and debutant left wing Mack Hansen shone.
Farrell will still pick out lots of moments where things didn’t go perfectly for Ireland but his team is in a happy place ahead of the visit to Stade de France, even if it will be a considerably different challenge against the Fabien Galthié’s side.
“It was a tough task,” said Farrell of overcoming Wales. “You can ask these guys, they’re pretty sore. I thought Wales made it very hard work.
“They got off the line quickly and tried to put us under pressure but I thought we was nice and calm, especially in those conditions.
“Fair play to the players for the courage of their convictions to play the game that we wanted to play. It wasn’t perfect, it never was going to be in those conditions, but I thought some of the execution was great.
“As far as the hit-out is concerned, it was perfect for us. Some of our guys have not played a big home game like that in a long time, so to get people back up and running was great.
“Now we have a seven-day turnaround so we must make sure we recover properly and onto the next one.”
The only other time Ireland have gone to Paris under Farrell so far was a disappointing occasion in 2020 when they came up short on a 35-27 scoreline.
The current Irish team certainly seems to be in a better place to go and look for a win against the French, with Farrell stating his confidence in how hard the squad worked as they “pushed the boundaries” during their 12-day build-up to this Six Nations.
The Irish attack flourished at times against Wales, continuing from where they left off in the autumn, and there could have been more than the four tries Ireland finished with had they been more clinical.
But Farrell was happy with the Irish defensive effort in Dublin, even though they gave up a frustrating late try to Wales back row Taine Basham.
“That was the most unpleasing thing about our performance, we got a bit loose,” said Farrell.
“It looked as though we was just trying to keep playing for the sake of playing. We didn’t manage that particular part that well and the looseness ended up with a Welsh try.
“It wasn’t how we had defended before that because our defence was good and it’s something we really pride ourselves on. People are talking about the way we’re playing the game at the moment but the best part of our game by a country mile is our defence.”
Among the positives for Ireland was the performance of left wing Hansen on his Test debut, with the Connacht man particularly prominent in attack.
“We’re not surprised,” said Farrell. “He’s got the temperament for handling debuts, he’s very cool, calm, and collected with how he plays the game.
“It suits how we play the game as well, we want to be nice and controlled in how we make decisions and I thought he was pretty smooth at times.”
Farrell will watch events in Paris today with keen interest knowing that a much bigger test lies ahead next weekend.
Sounds worrying
@geraldo: he has a point about thr penalty count. When your winning handy enough there’s no excuse to give away penalties.
Hard to stay disciplined and motivated if you are winning by 50pts. The big problem is the overlap with international windows. It effectively means each club has to have two teams. If there were fewer games it would be more competitive. A pool or conference system is the only way to go without asking unions to reduce the number of teams they have.
@Rudiger McMonihan: few clubs lose a whole team to the international windows. Maybe one in each country would lose 15. I think a 2 division league might work but as soon as the SA teams come in it would be them and the 3 Irish sides. So maybe not.
@Chris Mc: I think this year you need to include all four provinces. If Connacht had played all their games they would be second in conference B.
@Chris Mc: no union will ever have relagation, would the FIR, WRU or IRFU risk one or more of their professional teams being 2nd division teams? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Zebre, Benetton lose as many players as Leinster to international call ups and have nowhere near the same resources. Its little surprise Leinster are walking it against those teams.
@Rudiger McMonihan: think we touched on this before, clubs need the 10/11 home games. The proposed new rugby calendar if it gets agreed will sort it out. With no overlap durning internationals. It has a 29/30 week club season, but I think it would be the end of the HCup. As the French Top 14 takes 29 weeks and if given the choice between changing their league system or leaving the HCup the French would leave the HCup. The Pro 16 and English Prem would have maybe 5 weeks that they could fit a new European rugby cup in (Current HCup, takes 9 weeks), but no way can the French fit in a 29 round league and 9 round HCup in 30 weeks, and if there are no French is it really worth it?
@Kingshu: yeah I said they need to reduce the number of club games. Pre-covid Super rugby teams played far fewer games (16 + 3 knock outs). The best players go on to play internationals after (14 in a normal year). Then the rest play in the mitre cup (10 + 2 KO’s). So everyone gets game time, the calendar is more coherent and the games are more competitive. The way our calendar is set up is ridiculous. There is so much overlap between pro14, Heineken cup and internationals. We bounce between the 3 all year too. Teams dont get enough time together to build momentum and their position on the table is often down to how well their 3rd or 4th choice player is.
@Rudiger McMonihan: The New global calendar proposal
Is
Autumn internationals: October-November
Club and European games: December-July with a 7 week break for
Six Nations: April-May and same time the Rugby Championship: April-May. Players get a break from end of July to start of Oct.
Thats a 30 week club season with 7 week break with no games played durning 6 nations/rugbt championship. I just can’t see the Top 14 fitting their league and Hcup into that window.
@Con Cussed: have they not lost 2 games so far. They are a bit off the top 3 to be fair.
@Kingshu: I am with you on this. The system that has been cobbled together over the years has suited the Irish set-up more than anyone else; its deficiencies are increasingly obvious but it is hard to see that there will be changes that will be beneficial in the round.
The underlying problem is that there are only 2 countries – England and France – with the resources to support a domestic professional ‘club’ set-up. The rest have to rely on subsidies from the mens’ senior international game and an artificial cobbled-together league combining the remaining countries.
For us the real focus of the ‘club’ game is the Heineken Cup, but this can only really exist if the English and French clubs want it to, and only a minority of them are really committed