Momentum only exists if you possess it. Even if you cannot see or hold it in your hands, you know you have it after winning three internationals on the bounce. Momentum is useless when you lose and must go in search of fresh motivation.
It exists, today, if you are Welsh. If English or Irish, even Scottish or French, it must be ignored.
If you are Italian during this gap week you must feel broken, even more than you were before kick-off last Saturday. The opening two rounds of the Six Nations drained the life out of Franco Smith’s team. Ireland merely picked through the carcass.
If Italy was a boxer the trainer would have thrown in the towel long ago. They are up against the ropes being pummelled. This cannot be allowed to continue. Ireland racked up six tries without setting the world on fire. The Italian resistance was abysmal, and the Irish coaches would have identified this fact quicker than the rest of us.
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Murrayfield will tell them more about themselves. England in Dublin will tell us everything. There is nowhere to hide anymore. Momentum be damned. Unless of course you are Wales. At least the old five nations version of the championship has never seemed so competitive.
France have gone and shot themselves in the foot. Their coach Fabien Galthie loaded the bullets into the chamber. So far, FFR president Bernard Laporte’s most notable act during the virus outbreak that postponed the Scotland match has been to warn the players about anonymously informing the media about how their head coach’s behaviour ruined any chance of anyone respecting Covid protocols.
Galthie went to see his son play a rugby match. Any parent can understand that desire. I want to be cheering Ranelagh Gaels under-8s this weekend. I want to drive down the country so my folks can see their grandkids. We all want to do these things. It is slow torture to resist such desires.
Nobody wants to see anyone lose their job or for a Test match to be permanently cancelled. The French know this is their ace in the hole.
Imagine Galthie’s behaviour occurred in the Carton House bubble. Say, Andy Farrell justified leaving camp to attend his child’s game by saying “I was wearing a mask and while I was standing beside Stuart Lancaster on the touch line he too was wearing a mask, so we broke no protocols”.
Or the Irish players went for waffles in Rome after beating Italy. The outcry would make golf-gate seem tame. Liveline would be overrun. In a sign of supreme arrogance, Laporte is attempting to sweep everything under the carpet with the mantra that the World Cup in 2023 takes precedence over everything else. Even the pandemic. He is some operator.
The Six Nations cannot punish them, I feel, because to award Scotland a bonus point victory would be to punish the Six Nations. I am not sure what power, if any, they can wield in this situation.
Great to have the French back in unpredictable form.
Better team
Meanwhile, over in Wales, head coach Wayne Pivac looks like a world-renowned physicist. If momentum is the ability of an object to continue moving because of its mass and velocity, we may rename it the Alun-Wyn-Jones theory.
Beating Ireland in Murrayfield has never been so important to Scotland. Not in my memory anyway
Think of a snowball rolling down a mountain. What starts as a small, slow moving object can easily become a forceful fast-moving, large object that could do some real damage to anything in its way. I was caught under such a snowball in 2005, 2008 and 2012. In each season Ireland expected to beat Wales. We believed we were the better team with superior players. Hard as it is to swallow, we were wrong on those occasions.
The valleys are calling the Grand Slam home again.
Wales are generating that old momentum, so much so that Pivac felt confident enough to fire off a shot at Pascal Gauzere for not sin-binning Maro Itoje.
At this rate they will need to introduce conscription to unearth future international referees.
I am convinced that Ireland would be preaching from the momentum bible if Peter O’Mahony had avoided a red card in Cardiff. Or Caelan Doris was not struggling with concussion. Or Johnny Sexton or Joey Carbery or Tadhg Furlong or Conor Murray or Dan Leavy had avoided injury.
We could bang that drum until we reach fever pitch but the fact remains that Wales have an uncanny knack of creating their own momentum regardless of injury counts or suspensions. It has a lot to do with rugby being their national sport. They feed off the public as much as the All Blacks and Springboks. Especially when England cross over the Severn. The way they snatched 14 points through poor refereeing and Dan Biggar’s sneakiness will only make this Triple Crown taste sweeter.
Ireland carried defeat to Wales into the France game, where they were out played in almost every sector. They could have stolen victory in the dying moments and be sailing to Edinburgh with three wins and dreams of great days revisited.
Wales have a history of doing just that. Ireland do not.
Like offloads, momentum can only come from positive play. The pointless box kick is still a fundamental part of Ireland’s attack. It would be a valuable weapon if the ball was coming back on their side. CJ Stander – to his eternal if misguided credit – keeps charging into brick walls for one- or two-metre gains.
Both of these tactical decisions are music to Scottish ears. Stuart Hogg wants Ireland to kick him the ball as much as Matt Fagerson will show how a number eight should use footwork in tandem with ferocity.
Ireland will probably claim momentum after beating Italy, who gave them 18 penalties, but do the players really believe that themselves?
Four monumental Test matches are coming up where one defeat guarantees an utterly failed 2021 season. Beating Ireland in Murrayfield has never been so important to Scotland. Not in my memory anyway. Wales versus France in Paris on what was supposed to be the last day of the championship could be sullied by Eddie Jones. Le Crunch has a lot riding on it for England as Jones attempts to avoid a Six Nations meltdown comparable to 2018. We know they will eventually recover but I am not so sure Manu Tuilagi will save them.
Spectacular achievement
Conceding 41 penalties in three games is a spectacular achievement. The tight-lipped responses to Gauzere’s style of refereeing leaves nobody in any doubt how they feel about him but they cannot blame the French whistler for everything. Itoje had a torrid time of it, coughing up five penalties, and perhaps Gauzere is guilty of presuming nobody is athletic enough to collar a scrumhalf.
Ireland will probably claim momentum after beating Italy, who gave them 18 penalties, but do the players really believe that themselves? They will use the performance as a springboard to end the championship with three victories and a break-even season but I feel the external celebrations of Johnny Sexton’s skip pass for Keith Earls’ try has been far too loud. It was nice to see, as was Garry Ringrose and Hugo Keenan combining for a slick score but Italy showed all the hallmarks of a team running on empty. When confidence is shot defending tends to crumble first.
Ireland bullied another team their own size. They did not show the ability to attack from inside their own territory because Italy kept coughing up penalties in the middle third of the pitch.
That approach will not deliver a victory against Scotland. Not this year.
Impact off the bench could prove decisive. Andy Farrell needs to turn to players who can make a guaranteed impact, like Dave Kilcoyne, Ryan Baird, Jack Conan and Bundee Aki. Maybe Jacob Stockdale will come straight back into the team alongside Keenan and James Lowe.
If coaching is truly an art form and all this momentum talk means nothing, then Farrell cannot afford to get selection wrong.
Let’s see how the Munster game goes this weekend but is it too much to dream about Joey Carbery being sprung from the bench against England on March 20th?
Gary Halpin:
Gary Halpin was the old Leinster prop with real world experience when a lost teenager arrived straight from boarding school into a professional rugby squad. Gary treated 18-year-old me like a teammate.
With him it never mattered who you were, be it a big-time international or a very young man. Gary’s natural way of treating every person the same made some players, who were used to the hierarchical nature of old rugby values, feel uncomfortable, only to unite the entire group in laughter with a uniquely told anecdote.
His appetite for respect between peers is now seen as the basic standard in any successful sports club.
Anthony Foley’s tragic death brought us all together for a few days to console each other and celebrate a life gone too soon. Following Gary’s passing last week we are unable to do that. I just hope his wife Carol and three children Bentley, Leonie and Lenka know how important he was to so many of us who shared a changing room with him.
