Four years ago, the last time the Six Nations was a precursor to a Lions' tour, Wales went into their opening game at home to Ireland as the reigning Grand Slam champions, but were slow out of the blocks and lost. All was doom and gloom in the valleys.
Even a stirring comeback from a 30-3 deficit before eventually losing 30-22 did little to allay their disappointment, and the Welsh media widely questioned Rob Howley’s credentials as the then stand-in head coach for the otherwise engaged Warren Gatland.
Wales regrouped with a dour 16-6 win away to France a week later, and backed that up with further victories on the road against Italy and Scotland. Returning to Cardiff for the final Saturday, they needed to beat England by more than seven points to claim the title. For their part, England were seeking the Grand Slam in what was Andy Farrell's second Six Nations as defence coach alongside Stuart Lancaster. Wales won 30-3.
Farrell remembers it well.
“I do. Very well.”
The point being though, that Wales have shown it can be done, and Farrell is in no doubt that this Ireland squad can emulate them.
“One hundred per cent,” he says, adamantly. “You know what this team is capable of, and so do we. Has the challenge got a little bit harder? Yeah, but it’s not a challenge that frightens us. It’s one that has to excite us this week, and I’m sure it will.”
Farrell also believes Ireland can extract some positives from their comeback last Saturday, even if having scaled the mountain they slipped off again.
As to why that was, Ireland’s defence coach says: “There are all sorts of reasons; you could break it down technically, tactically etcetera. A few sloppy positions, playing for the full 80, a few decisions here, there and everywhere, that allow you to be out of the game or back in the game. In that last 10 minutes we slacked off the mood a little bit and allowed them access back in.
Fantastic
“But I ain’t taking anything away from that second-half performance. I thought it was fantastic because we challenged them at half-time and they rose to it because it was a big old mountain to climb, wasn’t it? They climbed it pretty hard. If we could get that ruthless streak for 80 minutes we are going to do well in this competition.”
Learning to be ruthless, or perhaps more pertinently remembering how, is the primary lesson to be applied in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico on Saturday.
“That’s international football, it’s consistency of application across the board and understanding what ruthlessness looks like. They are all good teams, every international team is tough and if you’ve not got an edge, then it is very hard to put teams away. If you have got an edge you can put teams away and we have got it in us. We just have to keep educating them and drawing it out of them.”
Since ‘restricting’ the potent All Blacks to four tries in Chicago, when of course scoring five themselves, Ireland have conceded three tries in each of their last four games, against Canada, the rematch with New Zealand, Australia and now Scotland.
“When you say three tries, it is too high, but I don’t go on stats at all,” says Farrell. “It is always cause and effect, and one of them was a lineout. You could be attacking and there is an intercept try against you. So there is always cause and effect, but I ain’t getting away from the weekend. We got caught tight twice and those tries needed to be dealt with better from us – and it was in the second half. And we got the ball that we wanted because of that. And those are the type of things we need to address.”
Farrell was reluctant go into the specifics of why the Ireland defence was too narrow for each of Stuart Hogg’s brace of tries, but said: “I’m more concerned about the mood at the time, about our lack of want to get back in the line and enjoy our defence.”
Opening exchanges
If it was a ‘mood’ thing or a ‘mental’ failing, Farrell appeared to imply that it was as much a response to things that went against Ireland in the opening exchanges, be it a minute, 30 seconds or five seconds, before rediscovering the love for defending in the second half and reaping the results.
Farrell rejected any idea that having played the Southern Hemisphere sides in six of their previous seven games, somehow Scotland didn’t represent as much of a scalp. “I never felt that was an issue at all. We respected Scotland 100 per cent.”
It's also been mentioned that Ireland missed the communication of Johnny Sexton and Jared Payne, but Farrell countered: "I've heard a lot of talk about different players within our side, and have they got a voice or not? At international level, if you're playing in front of 85,000 people, a voice is worth nothing anyway. It's instinctively being able to be good enough to get to it straight away, and that's vision and awareness, and opening your mind to all sorts of permutations, not just focusing on one job."
A tendency to be narrow in defence manifested itself most tellingly in the World Cup quarter-final defeat, which pre-dated Farrell’s arrival, and resurfaced in the autumn.
“It’s the hard part of the game to defend, of course it is, in those wide channels, and we work hard with outside backs in general, and even forwards, that they understand what type of decision-making it takes to make sure that we apply ourselves properly there.”
Again citing the second-half improvement, Farrell added: “That’s why I keep going back to appetite and mood. It ain’t just about spacing and getting across the field etcetera, because if you space out too much they’ll run through the middle of you anyway.”
