Iain Henderson, captain on a difficult night for the Irish team as they completed their three warm-up matches with a hard-earned 17-13 win over Samoa, struck a more disappointed tone than head coach Andy Farrell, who had expressed his ‘delight’ at prevailing in “a proper test match”.
However, he took encouragement from the manner in which his side stayed calm and rode out the storm to register a 13th successive victory, meaning they go into the World Cup on a new Irish record winning run.
Henderson said his over-riding reaction was “mostly disappointment” while adding: “Obviously there’s a few silver linings in there but we didn’t complete our game-plan the way we wanted to, but at the same time we were happy to get the win.”
The upsetting sight of Cian Healy departing in the 21st minute with a calf injury that threatens the 35-year-old’s participation increases tension around Ireland’s build-up to tournament. Henderson was asked whether the anxiety brought about by the impending World Cup squad announcement hindered Ireland’s performance against Samoa.
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“No, and if it did it’s probably one of the adversities that Faz [Farrell] would like us to be tested by. That’s not the most difficult thing we’re going to face over the next number of weeks.
“The group of guys that we have, and we’ve talked about this before as a coaching staff and squad, it’s an incredibly strong group of guys and the guys who’ve been waiting to find out their fate have probably carried themselves as well as you could have expected them to throughout training.
“The guys who are nervous about selection, who might be carrying that anxiety have trained well; everyone’s been on time, been as diligent as possible throughout the reviews, staying on top of stuff.
“It’s been a well-prepped Test week for us, so hat’s off to those guys who’ve been prepping so well.
“I think it’s not that side of things that affected us [against Samoa], it was a handful of other things like conditions, probably great pressure brought by Samoa.”
The plusses began with the win.
“There was a handful of times where I thought there were phases of play with the game plan we want to play,” said Henderson. “A lot of that first-half, we managed the territory well. It was something we talked about doing.
“We saw for both teams, conditions were tough. There was a handful of times our lineout defence worked well, but on the flipside of that I thought Samoa’s lineout defence was pretty good as well.
“It was encouraging to see a couple of scrums going well towards the end of the game, I know guys would be tough on themselves about a couple of those set pieces towards the start of the game. For us to talk in the changing-room at half-time, collect ourselves and go out and get the win in the second-half were the silver linings.”
As with the sight of Healy being helped off, the pervasive threat of injuries appears to have reared its head and claimed a victim in nearly every warm-up match.
“I’ve felt it a handful of times this campaign,” said Henderson. “It’s worse when it’s a team-mate but even watching other guys from other nations who are looking to play at a World Cup, whether it’s their first, second or third, pick up an injury it’s not nice.
“It’s a crescendo of hard work over four years and to see that pulled away from someone in the dying minutes of that four-year cycle is not nice.
“Again, it’s the game we’ve all signed up to. That’s the reason what we do is so special, it means so much to us because it’s so fragile sometimes.”
Overall though, Farrell’s satisfaction at seeing his team tested in so many ways was understandable. A night-time kick-off, an away match in all but name as the Bayonne crowd adopted Samoa, the teeming rain and most of all opposition that gave Ireland very little, contesting ferociously on Ireland’s lineout and scrum, could prove particularly valuable with the second pool game against Tonga in mind, when Wayne Barnes will again be the referee.
“For me and a handful of forwards, the importance of the set-piece. We need to make sure we have that firing for our game plan to work well. The physicality side of things, a good couple of times I think we fronted up well but probably we can be better on that side of things.
“And again, not to take these ‘tier-two’ or ‘lesser’ sides lightly in the pools, they have to be taken seriously. They have threats from all over, we know Tonga will be the same as those guys.
“A different team to those that played in other World Cups, they’re excited and proud to be playing for their country in potentially their first World Cup.
“From a spectator point of view, I think those teams will be thoroughly exciting to watch and all the teams that play them will have to have their wits about them.”
Samoa had also been inspired earlier in the day by Fiji’s historic win over England at Twickenham, as their head coach Seilala Mapasua confirmed.
“Seeing Fiji not just beat England but in the manner in which they did it was inspiring for all of us Pacific Islanders, I think,” said Mapasua. It’s encouraging to see where our teams are heading. It was awesome to see them make history.”
Discussing Samoa’s attempts to disrupt Ireland’s rhythm, Mapasua said: “Set-piece is something we’ve been working on, especially around our scrum. We knew that if we can be a par on them, we could at least give ourselves a shot
“We knew that they’re a team that love to keep ball in play for long periods and they love to play with speed, so that was something that we wanted to take away from Ireland, that speed of play. If we could stop their momentum then we at least give ourselves a chance.”
