Gaffney says Ireland will look to play heads-up game

IRELAND’S SLIGHTLY more liberated approach faces something of a litmus test tomorrow, for the Fijians would love nothing more than an unstructured game.

Alan Gaffney appears to have been granted more of an input into Ireland’s approach this season, and accepts that more discipline will be required against the fast and loose Fijians. But the Irish coach who stands by his phrase of “never-die-wondering” will never shackle players from playing what they see in front of them.

“I’ll never take that away,” said Gaffney. “That doesn’t mean you go and play sevens rugby in horrendous conditions. You’ve got to work it out and work out where you’re at,” he added, citing the example of the gift-wrapped seven-pointer which Ireland coughed up to Australia.

“I don’t think there was anything wrong with the intent. We just didn’t execute the play; simple a play as it was, we just didn’t execute it.

“That was the only problem we as a coaching panel saw as well.

“We’re encouraging the heads-up play. That’s what you should do all the time. No matter how structured and patterned you are, you’ve still got to play rugby with what’s in front of you.

“If you don’t, you shouldn’t be playing international rugby,” said Gaffney, though he admitted Ireland were not going to be “gung-ho” against Fiji.

Defensive coach Les Kiss is also mindful of playing with discipline, and highlighted last Sunday’s main problem area, the breakdown.

“There’s a number of factors that come into play at breakdown: first and foremost is the person who’s got the ball in his hands. We’ve worked a lot on how he carries the ball and make sure he’s doing the job that he needs to do to win the contact at the front end and the back end. And also the proximity of our support has to be better. There has to be a little bit more urgency, better height; we have to lay a platform there.”

The Irish squad had watched the events in Paris the night before, and Gaffney said: “It’s such an important event and to go out in such a manner was an absolute disaster. Everyone, anywhere, would have felt that very much.”