Bernard Jackman: The ‘harrowing’ aspect of Ireland’s Six Nations ‘hammering’ after Springboks ‘outlier’
Joe McCarthy during France v Ireland an inset of Bernard Jackman.
Joe McCarthy during France v Ireland an inset of Bernard Jackman.
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Former Ireland hooker Bernard Jackman has rued the fact that Andy Farrell’s side were ‘hammered’ by France despite a clear improvement in the set-pieces compared to their efforts in November.
Injuries to Ireland regulars Tadhg Furlong and Andrew Porter as well as further setbacks in the front-row, threatened a repeat of the events that unfolded against South Africa late last year, when the Springboks dominated the scrum en route to victory.
The lineout also faltered during the Autumn Nations Series, but both those aspects of Ireland’s game worked rather seamlessly in the Six Nations opener against France at the Stade de France.
Ireland bubble has burst
Andy Farrell’s men ended the game with a 100 per cent success rate in the scrums and conceded just one penalty on France’s put-in, while they produced a 94.12 per cent success rate with their lineout throws.
Despite the set-piece improvement, Ireland were still put to the sword by Les Bleus, conceding five tries in a 36-14 defeat.
“If the bubble wasn’t burst by finishing third in last year’s Six Nations, or by the harrowing defeats to the All Blacks and the Springboks in November, then it definitely was after the 24 hours between Thursday night in Paris and Friday night in Limerick,” Jackman wrote for the Irish Independent, referencing the Six Nations and Ireland XV team defeats.
“What makes the current Springboks side so remarkable is that they have been on top since the 2019 World Cup in Japan and don’t look like they are stopping. Most teams have peaks and troughs and we are certainly in, or heading into, a dip.”
The respected pundit and former Dragons and Grenoble coach says that Irish coaches attempt to make the game as black and white as possible for players, but adds ‘the reality is 70 per cent of the game is grey’.
Ireland needs to find more players who are able to perform outside of the black and white, according to Jackman as he stressed the fact that the set-pieces operated well but had no bearing on the result.
Harrowing fact
“We need to develop players that are comfortable in the grey and can capitalise in that space or have the tools to get back to black and white quickly,” he wrote.
“Against the Boks it was the set-piece that malfunctioned and we wrote it off as an outlier but the fact that our scrum and lineout performed well in Paris and we were still hammered is harrowing.
“We had decent first-phase possession in Paris and obviously went into the game with a Plan A of going heavy on contestable kicks, which made sense.
“But Shaun Edwards has the French defence very well drilled. They hunt in packs and to kill. We wanted to avoid those collisions and take the sting out of their defence by not playing into it with ball in hand but also to take the sting out of their attack because it’s normally very hard to generate dangerous attack from contestable kicks into you.
“Contestables that you kick and regather is a lovely possession source to attack from; however, we never really got to see that as we won next to nothing.”
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Ireland’s inability to make the most of their kicking game plan and win the aerial duels was not down to a single individual but rather the brilliance of the French players, the ex-front rower added.
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“Normally when a plan backfires there is a player that’s the culprit, but to be fair the majority of Jamison Gibson-Park kicks were on the money and Tommy O’Brien and Jacob Stockdale both got in the air well,” he added.
“But they couldn’t claim the ball back due to brilliant positioning, timing and skill by Louis Bielle-Biarrey and Theo Attissogbe in particular.”
