The goalposts have shifted, and how. This is not, most likely, how the Ireland squad, huge travelling support or those at home had envisaged Super Saturday panning out. Yet, after last week’s chastening defeat at the hands of the French, Ireland’s final game in the 2025 Six Nations against Italy in the Stadio Olimpico (kick-off 3.15pm local time/2.15pm Irish) has assumed a new importance. Maybe not so much for the supporters, but most definitely for the players and coaches.
It’s not even that Ireland are no longer in charge of their own destiny.
More to the point, the sheer scale of last week’s 42-27 loss has left scars. The concession of 34 points in 30 second-half minutes and of five tries at home for the first time in 20 years were unwanted landmarks for such a high-achieving team.
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For Eoin Reddan, the 71-times capped Irish scrumhalf who was part of three World Cup cycles (2007, 2011 and 2015), this game marks not only the start of the post-Conor Murray/Peter O’Mahony/Cian Healy era, but the real starting point for this current group’s quest for a World Cup winners medal.
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“Turning things around quickly this week is not a simple task. Andy [Farrell] isn’t in the room, the Grand Slam is gone, the chances of winning a championship are now remote and there is the added individual pressure of Lions selection.
“It presents a massive opportunity for these coaches and players to step up and lead, to pull the group together, to deliver a training week and performance that they can be proud of. Hopefully [it will be] a week that they can look back on when the inevitable tough days happen again in the future.
“Tuesday morning will probably have been the toughest mental test this group has faced. Unlike the World Cup disappointment they have to turn this around immediately and I think they will.”
In finding out which players are willing to take up the baton, Reddan believes this game “is a massive opportunity for this group, much more so than it is for the public or the fans, because if we go out and stutter and stumble then it just adds to the self-doubt that can creep in from a match like last weekend.
“But if the squad pull together, work for each other, and possibly even more leaders emerge from within the group, they can turn this experience into a real positive for the future. It’s a luxury to be sailing people off into the night winning trophies, because it can never really be about players leaving. All they want is the team to be at full tilt on the day they actually leave.”
Reddan admits last week’s defeat remains “puzzling”, although he cites “the huge loss” of James Lowe in the warm-up in addition to Mack Hansen, and their importance to both Ireland’s defence and attack.
“James Lowe in the red zone seems to be a fairly common ‘go to’ for us. He carries, offloads, draws in men or takes something on the edge. He’s an option for offloads and crosskicks and seems to score a lot of our tries in the red zone, and we didn’t have him in the first 20 minutes where we normally would go to him.
“Losing him so late makes it difficult to adapt as a collective and come up with a different way. To be fair the team did and at the start of the second half they had got their try. It’s only at the highest level that taking 20-30 minutes to adapt can prove not quickly enough. And then the yellow cards were massive. France took real advantage of the yellow cards.
“It’s interesting thinking about France, who had a similar dark day against Ireland not so long ago, who were so good at the breakdown about a year ago; they were smashing defensive breakdowns. It was scary how effective it was and now we see them dialling that tactic right back, putting less in the ruck and getting 14-15 players on their feet ready to get off the line and deal with whatever shape comes at them, which they are doing incredibly well, and it presents a different challenge to teams attacking them,” said Reddan, who worked under the French defence coach Shaun Edwards in the Wasps glory years.
“The importance of defence is still enormous. Look at the last two World Cups and how they were won, and now France continue to prove that. Their defence was off the charts. They are on top even without the ball. I think they only had around 40 per cent possession against Ireland. Unfortunately, last Saturday would suggest their attack also looks like it’s the best in the world right now.”
When Reddan played for Edwards at Wasps, the latter’s advice when confronted by such an aggressive defence was to look for kicking options, be it grubbers, crossfield kicks or any means of finding grass, so as to deny the opponents opportunities to do what they had been preaching and practising all week by running at them.
Furthermore, until such time as World Rugby outlaw 7-1 bench splits, Reddan believes Ireland have the forward firepower to deploy that tactic.
This game also has another element for the Irish players which there is no escaping from, in Reddan’s view, namely the summer’s British & Irish Lions tour, for this is the last international weekend before Farrell names his squad for the venture to Australia.
“I think it’s important for the team that they step up, for their own belief when they have these days again because they will have them. If you play France every year you are going to have days where France are that good. They just are. If [Ireland] get this week right the rewards are certainly there. They should have the largest number of Irish Lions ever, who will grow further during the summer and come back to drive Ireland again in the autumn.”
Reddan played in the 2013 Six Nations, which concluded with Ireland’s sole loss in Rome, although he cruelly missed out on that game and a shot at the Lions due to the broken leg he suffered in Ireland’s penultimate game, a 13-13 draw at home to France. The defeat cost Declan Kidney his job.
“It was a much worse Italian team. This team are good because they have more talented players and a coach who just seems very ambitious for them. Italy are very dangerous at home and the France result has really put it up to us,” says Reddan in relation to the latter’s 73-24 win over Italy in round three.
“I think Italy probably would have targeted this game, because in their eyes, we are still standard bearers. So a win over Ireland would be massive for them right now.
“You look at this Irish team. Hugo Keenan, Gary Ringrose, Jamison Gibson Park, Tadhg Furlong are experienced internationals, Cealan Doris is growing as a captain and, along with Finaly Bealham and Jack Conan, has 50 caps now, while Dan Sheehan has captained them.
“It’s this team’s time now and when they respond well to this, it will be a key moment that they’ll be able to look back on and say: ‘We did that together as a group’. These moments are always opportunities for teams to grow their sense of ownership within the group. For some teams they just pass by; I doubt these players or coaches will let that happen.
“Winning a title might have given them the same right but their challenge now is a different one, it’s to lead from a tougher place this week. I think it’s a great opportunity. There’s loads of good players and coaches in Carton House this week. It’s far from all doom and gloom.”
