Ireland set for defining Six Nations test against England

Visits to Paris and London always represent Ireland’s tougher biannual itinerary, all the more so when they are back-to-back and each have rebounded from anti-climactic World Cups with unbeaten starts under new coaching regimes. But this Saturday’s trek to Twickenham looks tougher.

True, England have merely beaten Scotland and Italy to date, but have done so handsomely enough. Eddie Jones has much more to work with and is not having to tear up the script and start from scratch, and they make their first return to their London headquarters since the World Cup on the back of two away wins.

They're also hungry, having finished runners-up for four successive Six Nations campaigns, and having been pipped to the title in each of the last two seasons on the last day by Ireland on points' differential. They have also a tactic shift which Joe Schmidt admits is unnerving him.

There has been, said the Irish coach, “definitely a tactical change” adding: “There’s definitely different things that they’re doing in the last two games as opposed to the last four years, which is a little bit frustrating because we kind of knew the shapes and the way that they played over the last few years.

“And sometimes you couldn’t stop that anyway because they played very, very well and I think they tended to play a couple of diamond shapes and had a lot of variety of those two shapes and so it was very hard to defend those.

“But at the same time you knew that the options were off them so as long as you were astute you could try to defend them as best as you can with one v one with big Billy (Vunipola) or one of their real athletic guys with the elusive ability of a Mike Brown, Jack Nowell, Anthony Watson, Jonathan Joseph, they are very dangerous in their back sort of three or four, it doesn’t really matter what shapes they play they’re going to be dangerous anyway.”

“And they shift the ball very well, George Ford and Owen Farrell are two of the best passers in world rugby so to transition from one point of attack to another point of attack is something they can do quite seamlessly and they can do it off two incredibly elusive scrumhalves that have the passing game but also the running game that you can’t leave them too early either.”

All in all then, a tougher challenge at face value than the last game, albeit with a 13-day turnaround as opposed to one of six days, and with the contrasting lack of momentum with their opponents or that Ireland had generated with two wins from two games at this juncture under Schmidt in the last two campaigns.

“It’s an exciting challenge, particularly on the back of us having a little bit of disappointment, particularly against France. Again, I think we’ve played in patches as well as anyone has but we’ve got nothing to show for it really. We need to desperately try and get something on the scoreboard.”

Attacking rugby

Schmidt enjoyed the challenge represented by England under Stuart Lancaster, not least as they also sought to scrum legitimately and play attacking rugby off their set-piece. The English frontrow is liable to be a repeat of last season: Joe Marlar, Dylan Hartley and Dan Cole.

“Across their frontrow we know that they’re going to be tough and they get plenty of horsepower from the size and strength of the guys behind them,” says Schmidt.

All the better for Ireland therefore that they are likely to have Cian Healy and Mike Ross back in the match-day 23. Significantly each trained with the Irish squad last Thursday in Mullingar, whereas James Cronin and Tadhg Furlong trained their provinces, before Healy and Ross were given a second game in their comebacks from knee and hamstring injuries with Leinster on Saturday.

Jones has mischievously joked that he would bring in an Aussie Rules team to help England cope with Ireland’s likely bombardment of kicks.

In response, Schmidt said: “Yeh look, I was down in Melbourne a couple of times last year, so I actually sat in a coaches’ box for Carlton versus Richmond. There were 24 TV screens in that coaches’ box so whatever they do do down there, it is well beyond my ability to cope with all that information overload.

“But seeing all the line coaches inter-act and trying to get all of that organised, I’ve no doubt that I picked up a couple of tips on kicking but I think we’ve kicked less than a quarter of the possession we’ve had which probably doesn’t correspond with the statistics that have been reported.”

Out of hand

Indeed, in England’s games to date they kicked the ball out of hand 41 times (or 36 per cent of possession) against Scotland and 36 times (again 36 per cent of possession) against Italy.

To augment Schmidt’s assessment, Ireland kicked 28 times (or 23 per cent of possession) against Wales, and 25 times (24 per cent of possession) against France. In other words, Jones’s whiter than white purveyors of running rugby have kicked the ball more.