What's happened to Ireland?
The so-called Guinness series may well have left a slightly bitter taste in the mouths of most, especially of those whom had bought into media hype and hyperbole about Ireland’s chances against New Zealand. Realistically, an Ireland team in transition was never likely to register a first win against the All Blacks but the manner of Ireland’s performance was a source of great disappointment.
It’s not that Ireland were never really in the game that caused the greatest disappointment. It wasn't the fact that it could have been so much worse had Dan Carter’s kicking been in range, or had the All Blacks got firing in the first half. It was the cluelessness and lack of direction that seemed to permeate throughout the whole team; the forwards were out muscled, the backs looked impotent and O'Gara totally failed to control possession and territory. The All Blacks were clinical of course and their tactics took O'Gara out of his comfort zone. They left the wingers deep when Ireland were on the ball and were happy to have O'Gara kick the ball down their throats all afternoon. O'Gara's failure to adapt to the All Blacks tactics is profoundly disappointing at any level but when you're talking about a supposedly world class outhalf with serious Lions aspirations, it's almost terrifying.
Make no mistakes about it; this wasn’t a good Autumn for Ireland but with tier two qualification secure and Italy the only team that, realistically, stands between Ireland and a World Cup quarter-final, Declan Kidney may well feel like it’s job done. And in some ways, it was. Ranking above Scotland was the first order of business and it was duly taken care of but now the real work has to begin.
Kidney is faced with a serious rebuilding job that almost mirrors the mess that Matt Williams inherited at Ulster. For a while under O’Sullivan, Ireland did well. Three Triple Crowns may smack of underachievement in retrospect but it was still a stark improvement on the years before. The same, of course, can be said of Mark McCall’s tenure at Ulster. While he guided Ulster to the Magners League title, he never quite managed to push his team into the quarterfinals of the Heineken Cup. Eventually, the bubble burst for both McCall and O’Sullivan and it burst quickly and dramatically.
We all know the rumours that emanated from Ravenhill at the end of the McCall-era and, no doubt, at least some of those same problems lived in the Ireland camp under O’Sullivan. There was a hint of hierarchy and reputation in O’Sullivan’s continued selections. His refusal to bring Jamie Heaslip or Tommy Bowe into his teams at the beginning of the last 6 Nations shows that. It is now Kidney’s job to break down these structures and to rebuild an Irish team that is short on depth and that is moving inexorably towards serious transition.
In too many areas, Ireland is an old team and, especially in the front row, ready-made replacements aren’t forthcoming. For the sake of comparison, the average age of the Ulster starting XV that tore Connacht apart was 25; the average age of the Ireland starting XV against New Zealand was 28. 28 may not sound all that old and three years not such a drastic difference but only four of the Ulster players that lined out against Connacht were 28 or older. 8 of the Ireland team that took to the pitch against New Zealand are, or will be, 30 or older by the time the next 6 Nations ends and Paul O’Connell will only be a few months behind.
The Williams revolution has now begun in earnest at Ulster; the Kidney revolution, at least in part, had to be put on hold until World Cup seeding was sorted out. The legacy of problems caused by holding onto Eddie O’Sullivan for six disastrous months following the World Cup is already apparent and it is looking increasingly likely that Kidney has no choice but to use this coming 6 Nations as a chance to develop the new core of his team.
That’s not to say that at least some rebuilding hasn’t begun. Kidney chose a strong side to face a weak Canadian team but still gave the likes of Keith Earls and Stephen Ferris the chance to show, not only what they could do in the international game but also to show how well they could fit into a full strength Ireland team. Ferris, in particular, took his chance and, on these kinds of performances, could easily find himself bothering Ryan Jones for a Lions shirt.
Any team that can take The Pumas on up front and come away with the points is moving in the right direction but there are still questions that hang over the Ireland camp, and the biggest must now be dangling like the sword of Damocles over Brian O’Driscoll’s head.
One brave soul suggested last week that watching O’Driscoll trying to scoop up a loose ball was like watching an oil tanker turning around. The sad thing is that this isn’t far wrong. O’Driscoll has lost more than a yard of pace and in the international game he now looks positively slow. When he hacked a ball through against Canada he was easily outstripped by everyone single one of the covering Canadian defenders. He may well have been carrying an injury into the Autumn but if he was, the fact that Kidney didn’t, or couldn’t, replace him in the starting XV goes some way to showing the serious problems Ireland face and will face in the coming seasons. O’Driscoll has been overused for too long. Too often, he’s been rushed back from injury to go straight into the Ireland midfield. O’Driscoll’s body may no longer be up to rigors of the international game, yet, at least in Kidney’s eyes, there is still no natural replacement.
O’Driscoll’s reading of the game is unquestionable, he’s still a rock in defence and his general nous on the park makes him an important member of the squad but at the same time, he no longer looks capable of making a clean line break and seemed to be part of the problem Ireland’s backs had going forward. It’s noticeable that O’Driscoll’s best work in the Autumn was done with the boot, not with the ball in his hands.
O’Driscoll wasn’t the only questionable or conservative call from Declan Kidney. After two anonymous performances in the centre, Fitzgerald was given the green light against Argentina and continually ran himself into traffic. Fitzgerald is a centre only because some in the media seem to think that he will be the next Brian O’Driscoll but he’s done little for Leinster and nothing in a green shirt to suggest that he’s worthy of a spot in an international centre. Questions, duly, were raised as to why Paddy Wallace wasn’t called upon but these questions merely highlighted one of the serious problems with Kidney’s selection. An unfit and off-form O’Driscoll was given the captaincy and thrown onto the park to play inside centre. Despite Wallace being the form 12 in Ireland by some way, he has come up against an immovable rock of Brian O’Driscoll who, apparently, is just far too slow to actually play in the position of the number he still wears.
O’Driscoll and Fitzgerald are far too similar to form a centre partnership. This is understandable, of course but it doesn’t mean that pairing them in the midfield is the right thing to do. With O’Driscoll’s attacking threat almost neutralised by injury and a total lack of variation, or distribution, from Fitzgerald, it is easy to understand why Ireland only managed to score one try in the two meaningful games this Autumn and it should come as no surprise that it came from a move that directly bypassed the midfield. A few years ago, Ireland had the best midfield pairing in the world but, with so much still unknown about D’Arcy’s injury, O’Driscoll looking well past his prime and Fitzgerald totally failing to fire in the international arena, it is a cause for serious concern and one that Kidney must seek to address before the 6 Nations.
I don’t think it should go unnoticed that when Ireland pushed the All Blacks so close in the summer there were three kicking options in the midfield; O’Gara, Wallace and Kearney. With Wallace on the bench and Kearney stranded on the wing this time around, O’Gara was pressured and Ireland suffered. O’Gara should neither be vilified nor exonerated for his atrocious performance in the autumn. While his performances were singularly poor, Kidney’s tactical approach was off-kilter and put excess strain on an outhalf who, in green at least, has never performed well under pressure.
There was more bafflement with the almost comically erratic selections at fullback. While Kearney has only played once at 15 for Leinster this season he is still, by far, the best option. Earls, clearly, isn’t trusted at 15 for big games and Dempsey showed his age against the All Blacks. And while Geordan Murphy put in a solid performance against Argentina, we were all reminded of his serious lapses in concentration as he went haring after the Pumas’ half-backs like an openside, while leaving a huge hole at the back, into which Argentina, unsurprisingly, leathered the ball.
Jamie Heaslip and Donnacha O’Callaghan were noticeable for being both ever-present and decidedly poor throughout the Autumn series. For all the promise he showed last season, Heaslip appears to be some way off his best and may well struggle to make the starting XV come the 6 Nations. O’Callaghan looks every bit a player that is content to know that, at the moment, there is no one else and his performances duly reflected this. Sadly,
The backrow is still where Ireland’s greatest pool of talent is found but is also an area of concern. While Quinlan looks likely to be sent off to pasture, the exact form of the backrow come the 6 Nations is a complete mystery. Ferris added considerable and much-needed bulk and ferocity to the backrow but the balance still wasn’t quite there when he lined up with Heaslip and Wallace. Without O’Driscoll at his peak and with no D’Arcy to back him up in the midfield, Ireland haven’t been tuning over the ball with any regularity. The need for a pure openside is obvious and, with Jennings still not impressing at Leinster like he did at Welford Road, David Pollock must at least become an option, with David Wallace moving to Number 8.
With the added pressure of World Cup seeding, the selections this Autumn were always going to be an altogether conservative affair but Ireland are still a team very much in transition and Kidney has to show a little more bravery coming into the 6 Nations. Ireland have a very talented group of youngsters coming through and it will do them no good to be kept out of the Ireland side by an old-guard in sharp decline.
The Archipelago’s Ireland 22 for the 6 Nations:
15. R. Kearney
14. L. Fitzgerald
13. T. Bowe
12. P. Wallace
11. K. Earls
10. R. O’Gara
9. T. O’Leary
1. M. Horan
2. R. Best
3. J. Hayes
4. D. O’Callaghan
5. P. O’Connell
6. S. Ferris
7. D. Pollock
8. D. Wallace
16. J. Flannery
17. T. Court
18. R. Caldwell
19. J. Heaslip
20. E. Reddan
21. A. Trimble
22. G. Murphy
