As history has demonstrated, retaining the Six Nations is never easy, not least as Grand Slam champions. Five years ago, when Ireland began the defence of their Six Nations and Grand Slam triumph of 2018, they were derailed by the English chariot at the Aviva Stadium. As Joe Schmidt subsequently admitted, the defeat left them “a bit broken”.
There are still four rounds of the 2024 Six Nations to come and history is against Ireland. Only five times since the championship was expanded to six countries at the turn of the millennium has the defending champion retained their title and never in that time with back-to-back Grand Slams.
Yet so well-oiled a machine is this current Irish team, and so convincing a start did they make in Marseille last Friday night with that record-breaking 38-17 win on French soil, that anything less than a second Grand Slam might now seem like an anticlimax.
Mindful of the unpredictability of the Six Nations, part of their challenge will be dealing with the giddy expectations of both themselves and their public. By the same token, they can’t but be excited by what they can henceforth achieve.
“Definitely, yeah,” agrees Josh van der Flier, while also attempting to keep it real. “I mean, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, there’s still four big games left so we’ll take it step by step.
“I know we always say that, but it is still the nature of it. We can’t get ahead of ourselves. But it’s a brilliant start, so we have to be very happy with that.”
Ireland's magic night in Marseille
As the Irish flanker also put it: “Any team you play away in France, whether it’s club or country, it’s always a very hard place to play and to do it for Ireland is a very special day.
“Them going down to 14 men obviously makes it a bit different but [we’re] really pleased. I thought it was a great effort. We looked threatening throughout. I thought we attacked really well, and in defence we managed to close them down a good bit. So yeah, very happy about that.”
Ireland only made six turnovers in the game, in the process restricting France to just two scrums on their own put-in, but as impressive as the team’s execution was their mentality in moving on from the World Cup. In this, not surprisingly, Andy Farrell has been as good as his word.
“One thing I’ve found which has been brilliant is a lot of the narrative is that it’s a new start, a new cycle or whatever,” said Van der Flier in reference to outside noises. “But that certainly wasn’t the case with how we’ve gone about it in the last few weeks. It’s just been: ‘Right, what have we learned from New Zealand? What have we been doing well?’ It’s almost a continuation on from where the squad has been.
“I suppose we’re still taking learnings along the way and it’s almost like the World Cup was a stepping stone to keep going, to keep improving. That’s kind of been the mindset that Andy has been driving with us and that obviously helped.”
Retaining their composure when the home team and crowd alike twice built up a head of steam to get back within seven points of Ireland was also significant.
Van der Flier confirmed that they had forewarned themselves this wound most likely happen and added: “It’s definitely in a good place. One thing I thought was that with the work of Gary Keegan as psychologist and the way the coaches spoke about the atmosphere, it’s something that we talked about.
“You’re kind of prepared for those things and then the leadership of Pete [O’Mahony], I thought he was brilliant on Friday. There were times when they scored, the crowd was going crazy and it was getting to be a pretty close game and there wasn’t even a raised voice. He was just calm, just telling us to get back into it and he had given us clear messages.
“I think that was there from a leadership point of view and then, having spoken about it and it’s something that we work on, it’s in a good place. But it’s one of those things, you have to keep continually working on it. If you don’t address it one week, that’s when things can go against you a bit.
“But it’s definitely been a strength of ours, I think, over the last couple of years and we’ll keep working on it.”
The Irish flanker also confirmed that the introduction of three young players - Jack Crowley, Joe McCarthy and Calvin Nash - energised the rest of the team.
“Fair play to Jack. It’s a hard position to play at any time, never mind with the French coming at you hard. He did really well. Joe was brilliant as always, destroying mauls and running hard, and then Calvin as well did really, really well. I was very proud of the three lads. They really put in a big shift.”
Despite being 30 himself, with over half a century of caps, Van der Flier didn’t see any need to have a private chat with McCarthy in the build-up to the 22-year-old’s Six Nations debut.
“Not particularly, no. He’s a great lad. He’s got a good head on his shoulders,” he said, before being asked about McCarthy’s haircut.
“It’s a good haircut, yeah. It’s aspirational, that mullet, but he has worked hard on it in fairness to him and he’s very proud of it, as you can see.”
