IRELAND TOUR TO NEW ZEALAND:ONE OF the first things that strikes you about the Ireland team which will boldly dare to go where no Irish team has gone before in New Plymouth on Saturday is how physical it is.
The collisions and breakdown will be key, and, in most of the marginal calls, the Ireland coaches have gone for physical players in their specialised positions. No-one is being asked to play somewhere they are unfamiliar with.
With four of the half-dozen changes from the team which lost to Scotland last March injury- induced, the only two players who lost their places, as such, are the unlucky duo of Jonathan Sexton and Geordan Murphy, who miss out to Ronan O’Gara and Rob Kearney respectively.
“Yeah, they were going well but two months have passed in between,” said Declan Kidney at the squad’s base in Auckland yesterday.
“Ronan and Rob have gone well so they are marginal (calls). We’re trying to build a squad, it’s about how things go in terms of getting the best use out of our players, in terms of the team, and if we don’t learn something about that on a tour like this then we’ll never learn anything.
“What do we learn about Ronan, you could say? Well, you know what you can trust, you look at the way he ran the Munster backline after what would have been a difficult Six Nations for him and he’s come out tops again.”
However much the coaches might have balanced Sexton’s physicality against that of O’Gara, this is offset by the latter’s good form of late (his mood will be buoyant on the back of this recall) and in particular his greater place-kicking reliability and experience. To have any chance of registering an historic win over the All Blacks, Kidney has reasoned Ireland will have to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
Although injury ended his involvement against the Scots after just 27 minutes, Murphy’s skills and vision flourished amid Ireland’s desire to play a higher tempo, running and offloading game. The thought occurred that this was an Ireland team playing a brand of rugby that for the first time in yonks made full use of his repertoire and also gave him a run in the team.
Kidney conceded that Murphy had “done nothing wrong” but what Ireland have possibly sacrificed in link play and awareness, they have gained in other ways. Kearney has been rejuvenated since the Six Nations, immediately turning his form around when, on the advice of Michael Cheika, he began backing himself again.
Here again, Kearney is also more physical than Murphy, and Kidney and co would have been given a timely reminder of Andrew Trimble’s dynamic broken field running when he was the catalyst for the superbly worked Niall Ronan try against the Baa-Baas.
Kidney acknowledged the need for greater physicality against the All Blacks “because they’ll ruck you everywhere. If you go wide, you have to ruck as strong out wide as you do in close. You need to be mobile, because they do test you in all the different places.”
Some new faces on both sides will make for a game less reliant on video analysis and more on “dealing with things on the field on your feet” but, Kidney added, “there are core values that each team always brings to it.
“The ones with the All Blacks have been there for years so you have to not alone win your set-piece but you have to try and win the breakdown. If you don’t win the breakdown then you’re not going to do anything. With the way they’ve been rucking lately they’ll send one guy to the breakdown but if they get a sniff of you going in any way loose they’ll counter-ruck you and that’s why we have to be good and strong in that area.”
In the absence of Jerry Flannery and Rory Best, along with Paul O’Connell, Seán Cronin and Mick O’Driscoll bring vastly contrasting levels of experience to the equation. He describes the latter, whom he taught and coached at school, as a role model for younger players due to his perseverance.
Also mindful of how the last few months will have been an open invitation to attack the Irish scrum, Gert Smal will have been obliged to earn his corn this week.
The team is notable for having two Connacht men in Cronin, making his first start at hooker after two appearances off the bench, and John Muldoon, who deservedly augmented his two starts against Canada and the USA last summer (when he was accompanied by Ian Keatley and Gavin Duffy).
Along with Duffy’s late call-up, this is a merited reflection on Connacht’s much improved form in the second half of the season. The only pity is Fionn Carr isn’t here as well. Kidney and Les Kiss appear to have understandable misgivings about his defence, and the Irish defensive system makes particular use of its wingers, but Carr offers such a rare talent going forward that even working with Kiss for three weeks could only have been beneficial.
With Sexton and Murphy alongside Eoin Reddan on the bench, Ireland have impact potential as well as cover.
The replacements also include a couple of uncapped players in John Fogarty – a deserving and belated promotion for one of the Irish game’s most enduring pros – and Dan Tuohy, who can lay down a marker on this tour as a live contender for a World Cup spot given his potential to play lock/backrow.
They are joined by Tony Buckley and Shane Jennings. Although at 29 it possibly sounds a little late to be still referring to his potential, Buckley’s try against the Baa-Baas was a reminder of what he could still bring to the Irish mix.
For all their apparent frustration with him, no less than the player himself, Munster too need to ask themselves why Buckley’s form appears to improve whenever he comes under Kidney’s wing.
