by Pass, move. Pass, move. Constantly progressing. Always forward. Like the cogs of a Swiss pocket watch, Ireland’s attack operates with machine-like precision. Johnny Sexton retires, and Jack Crowley keeps the enterprise going. Andy Farrell makes five changes to the pack that crushed France in Marseille and Italy’s starters get the same treatment a week later. Tick, tick. Pass, move.
As Sage analytics have shown, Ireland have averaged 5.8 meters per pass in this year’s Six Nations. Against Italy, 122 of their passes traveled less than five metres. No other side last week played more than 66 short passes. By moving the ball around the edge and targeting the outside shoulder of the defender close by, Ireland’s ball carriers are able to rumble with a continuity that is sometimes unstoppable.
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“I think our fronts are very good at short passing,” says Paul O’Connell, Ireland’s forwards coach, as if the slick handling skills of the back five are nothing to take away. “That’s what we ask them to do a lot. More than other passports. Often our work progresses in groups of three. They have short passes inside and outside with their backs behind.”
Italy head coach Gonzalo Quesada compared Ireland to New Zealand during their lead. “They just do their basics and because their set piece was 100% effective, they did what we know they can do,” said Quesada after his side were thrashed 36-0 in Dublin . “When Ireland are at this level, there aren’t many teams in the world who can beat them.”
With two wins on the board, talk of a second grand slam in as many years has gained traction. O’Connell, who won the slam as a player in 2009, moved to cool the hype. “We talk about winning, sure, we always want to win the competitions we’re playing in – but once we’ve cleared that up, we don’t really talk about it,” the former British Lions captain and the Irish says. “We are focusing on the next game. We focus on what needs to be better and get excited about what we think might come out of performing.”
Continuity is the name of the game. O’Connell explains that – unlike some of Ireland’s rivals – not too much has changed in the dressing room, in terms of players and staff, since the World Cup ended. “We have a very experienced group. It’s pretty much settled. You start to understand that when you have a group set up. We can put things forward. We are not starting from scratch. We can get better and better with the simple things we are doing.” Perhaps that is why personnel changes, even in important positions in the field, do not have a destabilizing effect.
O’Connell credits Sexton’s influence, saying the retired half-back’s legacy is “in progress”. In his absence, leaders such as new captain Peter O’Mahony and senior figures such as Caelan Doris, James Ryan, Iain Henderson and Garry Ringrose have tackled driving standards and ensured that the next chapter in the included. yet another World Cup quarter-final return.
Another player who has more responsibility is Robbie Henshaw. If selected against Wales, the 30-year-old center will have won his 70th cap. After a hamstring injury reduced his World Cup to just 59 minutes over two games when he came off the bench, the hard-running midfielder believes he is performing close to his best.
“For me, it’s always been about getting back-to-back games,” says Henshaw. “Every week you play you get more confidence. I’m building nicely. There is more in me.”
After the disappointment of the World Cup, Henshaw spent a week at the Aspetar high performance center in Doha. Although he refers to it as a “working holiday”, he was on a strict regime that closely monitored his training loads and helped speed up his recovery time.
“Coming back from the World Cup, I wasn’t in the best shape physically and mentally,” says Henshaw. “It took me a few weeks to get into this campaign, and back in Leinster, to get back into the form I could get. Looking back on last year, it’s stop-start. I’m happy that my body is in a good place and my form is in a good place.”
Henshaw refers to the work he has done with Jacques Nienaber, a coach with South Africa who won the World Cup twice and is now an assistant at Leinster. Up to 19 players in Farrell’s Six Nations squad represent the Dublin-based club, adding to the continuity that makes this a formidable outfit.
“We’re adding layers and layers every week,” says Henshaw, echoing O’Connell’s thoughts. Even in separate meetings for the press, the whirlwind wars work with machine precision.
