โI HAVENโT MISSED being stiff and sore on Sunday mornings,โ said Richie McCaw as he prepared to make his comeback from a self-imposed sabbatical in 2013.
McCawโs case has been the bad penny, continuously turning up while weโve been rummaging around in search of positives for athletes during the ongoing absence of sport amid the Covid-19 crisis.
The All Black captain looked like a man eking the last droplets of willful energy from his body as he helped New Zealand win the World Cup on home soil in 2011. Four years on, he was in better nick, unburdened now by a foot injury, when he repeated the achievement in Twickenham.
The common consensus is that the six-month stint away from rugby served to replenish McCawโs powers enough to bow out with that second Webb Ellis on the table in 2015.
Dan Carter wore the black jersey for the last time on the same night in London having also exercised a clause in his NZRU contract to take six months off. The captain in opposition, David Pocock, then took time away from the game in 2017.
In sportswriting, we may routinely refer to a playerโs miles on the clock, the mounting toll on an athleteโs body is not so easy to measure as the odometer on their cars.
โPeople say it must be great, you must be feeling good, well, I donโt actually feel that different,โ McCaw said in an interview with Otago Daily Times before his return.
While itโs hard to avoid the assumption that there must a boost to be taken from the absence of numerous body-on-body collisions week after week, the Coronavirus pandemic presents a different set of circumstances for players and athletes.
There is not yet anything like clarity over how long social distancing will have to be sustained. So there is no finish line in sight for when life, never mind sport, will get back to normal. The current crop cannot relax on the comfort of anything resembling concrete timeline.
It may feel like an age, but tomorrow marks five weeks since Irelandโs elite rugby players last took to the field and suffered another dispiriting defeat to England. The provinces (bar Ulster who were scheduled to visit northern Italy) played a week later. So even amid all the necessary disruption, professional players on this island remain a long, long way shy of the six-month reprieve taken by the trio of 2015 World Cup finalists.
Physically, a break in play would absolutely have value when viewed as a part of the season as a whole: after pre-season began in June, Tests began in August and the draining World Cup season was then set to run right through to Irelandโs tour of Australia in July.
Recovery for athletes is an ongoing process between taxing sessions and events. Though their peers in other nations are often expected to wear their boots week in, week out for the full extent of a season with club and country. Rugby players in the Irish system are continually assessed, monitored and managed with rest windows built in. The same management will apply, imposing rest windows if and when an intense series of fixture catch-up is to be played.
To walk into a bar or restaurant and for no one to give you a second look was actually really nice,โ said McCaw, summing up his refreshed feeling after his hiatus, โafter a while the constant stuff here got on top of you. But you come back and you realise itโs not that big a deal at all, really.โ
There can be major mental benefits to this break for rugby players, particularly after a disappointing World Cup. However, as we touched on in these pages last week, social distancing presents its fair share of challenges for athletes. Irish rugby players are figuring out ways to entertain cooped-up kids, sustain a work-out routine and team unity withou proximity. McCawโs time away saw him travel to the US, catch up with friends, take in a David Letterman show and go skiing.
Pocock used most of his time to join up with an anti-poaching group in his native Zimbabwe and showcased some ingenious ways of getting a workout done with a rope acting as the most state of the art equipment on show.
Carter, who was somewhat unfairly said to have taken a sabbatical when he signed for Perpignan in 2008, used his time in 2014 to follow McCawโs path to the US, though his scene was more Coachella. There will be no such grand tours for players here, no matter how long the restrictions are in place.
And while the break away may well be timely for experienced players, giving them a break from the treadmill โ metaphorically if not physically, stopping the odometer in the final third of their career, there must be a danger that development for younger stars may also slow.
For every trial for the individual then, there are multiple complications when attempting to slot them back within a team. Pocock and the Kiwis then had the benefit of returning to sides who had remained ticking over throughout their absence. Rugby teams in the current climate will have to effectively begin their season anew whether the fixtures before them are at the business end of 2019/20 or not.
Some players who were struggling with injury will take solace in the fact that they are not missing out on big matches. But when they resume training their fit and well team-mates will be working up from a similar base and it will be intriguing to see which sides settle back into cohesive patterns of play quickest.
Or, indeed, if they alter their gameplans to accommodate any rust accumulated during the shutdown.
Thereโs no fun to be found in waking with a stiff and sore body every weekend, but players will be forgiven for missing the reassuring familiarity of it.
Excellent analysis of all the pieces of the jigsaw of moves leading to great tries
Great analysis as always. What an atmosphere yesterday. Delighted for Sexton and Healy!!! What a Six Nations send off
@Kenneth O Connor: Healy not getting a run was disappointing and strange
@Noel Lynn: He didโฆ only about 4 minutes but he did play.
Yesterday(and last week) should put to bed any doubt about Conanโs value. Every bit as effective as Doris imo.
@Gary Donlan: doris level ahead
@Gary Donlan: Iโm a big, big fan of Conan โ heโs an outstanding player โ but Iโd have to acknowledge that Doris is at the very top of the global tree. And he has so much more to grow, being so young. Arguably a future World Player of the Year nominee, if not winner.
I see lots of people saying how England really used line speed yesterday to get in Irelands face, thatโs not what happened at all. England played a soft drift defence, not putting too much pressure on the first carrier / passer, and not committing too many men to the breakdown, opting to be more disruptive and messy rather than look for turnovers. It was an interesting tactic and one that threw a lot of the Irish players off, particularly Furlong who takes the first pivot option quite often. Ireland will need to learn how to adapt to it by World Cup, I canโt imagine South Africa or France would try it, they would trust their line speed, but I wouldnโt be surprised at all if Scotland or even New Zealand thought about using it.
Great analysis there. It shows really how intelligent this group are. Dorris, JVF,, Aki, Sexton, Hansen running subplots and dummies lines and how they build a try 3 phases out. To have so many on the same page is extraordinary and as Farrell said, they will get a lot better over the next few months with more time collectively in camp.
Roll on the WC
It was squeaky bum time for much of the game. England gave it everything. Ireland found a way to win. Work done with decoy runners is magnificent. Enjoy, upwards and onwards to France
That was some offload by Conan for sheehans try.
Sheehan is a pure speed merchant
@Gary Galligan: Heโs a 4ร4 at full speed.
On the strike plays which Ireland use we have seen a few of these in this 6 nations I believe they have only used a small number of these in this 6 nations and there are many more which they had no need to use and they are been reserved for the later stages of the world Cup.
I would imagine when Farrell and his team review this game they will be a little concerned. Obviously the short term gain here, winning a grand slam, is brilliant. But there was a lot of pressure going into the game and we did not handle it well. Ultimately a red card may have won it for Ireland and whether you agree or disagree with the card the nature of it shows it can how easily happen under current rules. (There was at least 1 red card possibility for us that was missed by the ref and TMO). This team will ultimately be judged on how it performs in the World Cup. When they meet Scotland on the 7th of October it will more than likely be a knock out game. The pressure on them will easily be as intense as yesterday, probably more so. They will need to be a lot better. If we donโt make it out of the group, this Grand Slam will lose a lot of itโs shine. Of course hopefully by the time we meet Scotland SA will have 2 losses so it wonโt matter :)
@Pud: OTOH, the experience of yesterday, a real pressure cooker, will stand to them. Plus, those guys played a lot of intense rugby over a short period of time. Some were definitely not at their best, following injuries (Furlong, for example, looked rusty; Henshaw wasnโt fully up to speed; Ringrose in and out). Farrell took some risks, playing guys like Porter, VDF, Keenan, Hansen and others to their limits (Keenan looked tired yesterday, as did others). The player management plan for the RWC needs to cater for the interactive effects of physical endurance and how it affects mental/emotional resilience. Iโm pretty confident theyโre on top of that. And again, all the players will be better for the experience of this 6N.
@Pud: South Africa then Scotlandโฆfollowed by France or New Zealandโฆthree massive banana skinsโฆ.I donโt think if we are stopped before semi final, yesterdayโs outstanding achievement will be diminishedโฆ.cruel world cup draw.
Herring sealed victory over the All Blacks with a similar try in the third test .. hooker is definitely a position we donโt need to worry aboutโฆ bench again made the difference yesterday
Murray Kinsella, single handedly helping other teams work out Ireland!!