Ireland’s performance in the Stadio Olimpico caught me by surprise. I had talked myself into the belief that there would be a positive reaction to the defeat against France and it would manifest itself in Rome.
This Ireland rugby team has ramped up expectations, both for themselves and their supporter base, due to the overarching success of recent years. The goal was to win this season’s Six Nations Championship and in doing so become the first country to win three tournaments in succession and have a crack off a Grand Slam along the way.
I’ve been in a team environment when you know, without a trace of arrogance, that winning is within your control. It’s a very powerful mental picture to take on to a pitch. We didn’t lose too many of those games where we believed ourselves to be favourites.
That is not to say we went undefeated or anything close to that, more that when we felt that things aligned for us, we usually delivered on the potential.
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Ireland managed the early throes of the Six Nations well. Emboldened by the promise of a strong win over England, they successfully navigated a tricky away tie in Edinburgh and survived what proved to be a dead cat bounce from a Wales squad under new management.
My head and heart were aligned going into the week of the France game. I thought Ireland were ready to capitalise on any French vulnerability and take the penultimate step towards retaining the title. The second-half collapse of systems and structures, based on an individual and collective error-rate that skyrocketed, was so at odds with everything we take for granted with this group.
Fabien Galthié had lit a fire under France following the shoddy defeat to England. His players knew they were the better team everywhere but on the scoreboard, and that embarrassment coupled with changes in personnel elicited the desired response. It was a balance of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators.
The emotional baggage of that France defeat accompanied Ireland to Rome. In a winning team no one thinks about failure or slipping up, although that possibility is always there hovering in the background.
I don’t think I was alone in thinking that Simon Easterby’s side would produce a dominant victory. They didn’t. Uncharacteristically errant decision-making, basic mistakes at key times when building momentum, point to a team that is mentally fatigued. It’s now clear that the ripples from France’s bravura half an hour in Dublin travelled further than just the disappointment and frustration within the Ireland squad that you’d expect.
France snatched Ireland’s dream away, to all intents and purposes giving themselves the nap hand going into the final weekend. Playing at home in front of a packed Stade de France was a perfect backdrop to that final push to claim the Six Nations.
In contrast, Ireland had gone from leading 15-13 and dreaming of a Grand Slam to being flattened physically and emotionally and then having to deal with that hollow feeling inside.
It might have been great to sign off with a thundering performance, might have put some fans at ease, but these young men are human and trace elements of their disappointment or perhaps distraction were evident in Rome.
Seeing some of the headlines and social media taglines would suggest that Ireland are now in a state of chaos.
I ran a round-table facilitated by Lockton, the company I work for, and law firm DLA Piper, and had the pleasure of listening to Phil Hogan talking about trade and the complexities that Donald Trump’s MAGA principles bring to the table. Hogan’s advice was very measured and one phrase that stuck with me feels apt right now: ‘don’t get caught up in the rhetoric being thrown around, focus on actions’.
With that in mind, it’s reasonable to point out that Ireland have lost one match in this year’s tournament, and only five of our last 24 games. Those include two defeats to New Zealand, one in South Africa, one to England at Twickenham and the most recent against France.
There will always be people ready to try to pull down the team to suit a particular agenda. They might see this as a crisis or a point when Irish rugby is set to decline but, for me, Ireland are doing a pretty good job. Setbacks, bumps in the road, that’s sport.
My former Leinster team-mate and sometime captain Liam Toland used to say “never let a good crisis go to waste,” although he never gave Winston Churchill the credit for his appropriated wisdom.
While I will argue that Ireland are far from a crisis, the French loss and Italian performance have perversely helped to ease the pressure a little bit. The next nine months or so provides Easterby and Andy Farrell, when he returns from Lions duty, with an incredible opportunity to look at how they have been doing things and what, if anything, needs to change.
There is a natural turnover in the squad. Cian Healy, Conor Murray and Peter O’Mahony are all retiring and, with 10 of the current squad in their 30s, there might be more on the horizon. The next half a dozen Tests are a golden opportunity to properly examine the credentials of those considered for international rugby.
When you are an ambitious young player, it’s these opportunities that you crave, a few players stepping down and a couple of unhelpful results and performances. When ‘newbies’ come in, they bring their own slant on things and this can shake up the status quo.
I was that player at the start of my career, and towards the end of my time saw the benefit of the evolving culture within a team to reflect the people of the ‘here and now,’ rather than those that went before.
Leo Cullen led that as head coach in Leinster, the values reflecting a previous generation had become meaningless words until he helped reset the culture; he spent time helping that core group define what their Leinster looked and felt like.
Ireland will always be constrained a little by our playing numbers but we regularly overperform, leaning heavily on our systems and structures. Once the disappointment settles over the next few weeks, there is a chance to take stock and move forward with clarity.
The challenges ahead are real, but so too are the opportunities. Ireland’s ability to evolve, adapt, and rebuild will define the next chapter and, if history has shown us anything, it’s that this team thrives for the most part, when expectations are high. They must reascend to those heights once again.
