Simon Easterby plays down fears concerning Jack Conan’s injury as he misses training camp

Even though Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby has played down fears concerning Jack Conan’s well-being for the forthcoming World Cup, the number ‘8′ is the only player who has missed this week’s training camp at their Algarve base due to the foot injury that he suffered in last Saturday’s 33-17 win over Italy.

This must be a source of concern for player and management alike, given the injury revives memories of the player’s curtailed tournament four years ago.

The 31-year-old last week admitted he had unfinished business at the World Cup after a foot issue was exacerbated during the 2019 competition in Japan when a teammate stood on him in training. As a consequence, after playing the last hour off the bench in the opening pool win over Scotland, Conan didn’t feature before going home to undergo an operation.

“No, genuinely not,” said Easterby regarding any threat to Conan’s availability for the World Cup. “I think in the past Jack has had troubles with his foot but it’s nothing like it was in 2019. He was pretty bullish around the injury. We haven’t had full feedback yet but everything we’re hearing is that it’s a positive injury as opposed to a really negative one.”

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However, pending a final diagnosis, all concerned will be keeping their fingers crossed that it is not in any way a recurrence of the injury from four years ago.

Conan apart, the Irish squad used the same base at a similar juncture in their preparations for the last World Cup and prior to Six Nations campaigns since then, such as in the build-up to last season’s Grand Slam. Andy Farrell and co like the fast tracks, its familiarity and the guaranteed warm weather.

“It was actually drizzling this morning, would you believe? Down in the camp yesterday it was overcast, still very warm, then the sun came out this afternoon when we were out on the pitch,” as the temperatures reached 30 degrees.

“I think it’s going to get hotter as the week goes on, and we’re pretty familiar with this place now. It’s a great working environment and it’s a great place for guys to keep connecting, and enjoy a bit of social time as well. But it’s certainly ticks a lot of boxes in terms of our ability to work hard.

“It will be no different from what we do at Six Nations time, other than the fact we have the opportunity we have to train with the Portuguese team tomorrow [Wednesday],” said Easterby in reference to the planned training session with Portugal, whose team have qualified for only a second World Cup history and endeavour to play high tempo, ball-in-hand rugby.

“I think in general, the whole approach to preseason has changed quite a bit since I was playing,” admitted Easterby, for whom this is a fifth World Cup preseason. He played in the 2003 and 2007 tournaments, and was an assistant coach in each of the last two.

“I think I guess we don’t spend as much time apart, so the players don’t have as much time off I don’t think. In the past, there was maybe a bit more of a gap. We’re far more connected to what we did in the Six Nations now than when I was playing in 2007 or 2003.

“I guess the focus is on your ability to play with the ball, defend the ball, and make whatever you are doing conditioning wise, make it more specific to the game as opposed to running up a hill aimlessly or other things that in the past were maybe in trend.

“We feel like we’ve gone down a slightly different route in make sure we work really hard, we’ve given the S&C guys the ability to grow the players, get good strength blocs, good power blocs, speed blocs but also combine them with challenging them on a rugby pitch, challenging them making decisions both sides of the ball.

“It was a long time ago but there was a time when you wouldn’t see the ball for four or five weeks and you’d try catching a ball and inevitable you would not catch many,” he said, smiling ruefully at the perceived wisdom at the time.

“So, there’s definitely a shift in the way most teams train and every team will have a slightly different philosophy around preparing a team for the World Cup.”

These warm-up games constitute the phoney war, but despite the in-depth analysis by opposition coaches, Easterby maintained: “On the whole, you’re just trying to get your game in order whether it is with the ball or without the ball, you’re trying to give confidence to what you’re trying to do.

“I don’t think there are too many things you won’t show, there might be a few things obviously per every team. You might find a little chink that you think you can expose but on the whole, you’re just trying to do what you do with every game, trying to get better.”

Ireland’s performance in last Saturday’s 33-17 win over Italy was far from blemish-free, not least in Easterby’s own domain when conceding two tries.

“I don’t think either irritated me any more than the other but frustrating in that I think a lot of the things that we try to do as a team defensively is make sure we become hard to score against, and we probably didn’t make it hard enough for Italy to score their two tries.

“Part of that is our discipline, making sure that we don’t give them access into our 22, which we were very good at during the Six Nations,” said Ireland’s defence coach. Ireland conceded the least penalties in their Grand Slam campaign, 44 at an average of under nine per game, but lost the penalty count 13-10 last Saturday.

“But there’s also our ability that when a side does get in there, to make sure that it’s much harder to score than it was at the weekend.”