Six Nations analysis: Criticism of ‘conservative’ Ireland era fail to stack up

Statistics resemble Plasticine, malleable enough to shape most arguments. Ireland's attacking patterns under Joe Schmidt have come in for periodic criticism of late on foot of a perception that the needle is pointing to sterile in ambition terms.

Too conservative, too much kicking, not enough offloading, not enough line breaks or not enough tries represent a menu of complaints. But compared to what? The suggestion that Irish rugby was synonymous with a cavalier, derring-do style that yielded bucket-loads of tries in times past is fanciful.

It's up there as a misnomer with new England coach Eddie Jones saying that Ireland kick 60 per cent of possession and then escalating those figures to 70 per cent within 48 hours; think of a number and let it ride the hot air.

Handsome return

In this season’s

Six Nations

Ireland have kicked the ball less often than the side they will face at Twickenham on Saturday. They made seven line breaks against Wales to their opponents’ none. They passed the ball more often than other team in last season’s

Six Nations

. Subjectivity in the choice of category allows a fair amount of latitude in building a case.

So on that basis an examination of Irish rugby results and try-scoring ratios under Schmidt and his predecessor Declan Kidney – the first 29 matches of his 53 in charge of the national side have been used by way of comparison – offers strikingly similar figures.

Ireland claimed a Grand Slam-winning Six Nations title and Triple Crown in 2009 in Kidney’s time during the specified 29 matches from November 2008 to March 2011, while the national side won two Six Nations titles in 2014 and 2015 since Schmidt took over in November 2013. It is a handsome return from a successful period in Irish rugby.

What is immediately apparent from the graphic is the similarity between many of the statistics, with Schmidt’s Ireland winning one match more over the 29 games.

Kidney’s Ireland went on to score 115 tries during his 53-match run in charge of the national side at 2.16 tries per game – 88 against tier 1 countries, 27 against tier 2 – a pretty decent return, especially the number against southern hemisphere opposition.

His teams faced New Zealand on three occasions, Australia and South Africa twice apiece during that period (seven games), while Ireland under Schmidt have taken on the All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks just once each.

As the accompanying graphic illustrates, Schmidt’s Ireland teams scored eight tries more, at a slightly higher tries per game ratio and were also marginally in the ascendancy in the head-to-head tries per match against tier 1 and tier 2 nations.

Golden generation

So the current Irish coaching set-up presides over a group of players that has scored more tries than the previous regime at this point.

What is interesting is the breakdown between backs and forwards in the try-scoring stakes; again there is a very little discrepancy in the figures.

There has been quite a bit of wailing about the passing of the so-called golden generation, but as the graphic demonstrates the backs contributed 51 tries (forwards 17, one penalty try) under Kidney during the 29 matches, while with Schmidt’s direction the backs have amassed 50, with the forwards contributing 26 and also one penalty try recorded.

There is commonality in personnel across the two coaching regimes but what the graphic doesn't reveal is that Brian O'Driscoll (13) and Tommy Bowe (12) contributed 25 tries of those 51 from the backline during Kidney's time, while the leading try scorers among the backs for Schmidt's Ireland (50 tries) are fullback Rob Kearney (six) and Jonathan Sexton (six), with 17 different try scorers as opposed to 13 under Kidney.

The try-scoring rate of the current crop of players is therefore not too shabby when weighed against the previous coaching ticket, both of which were successful in terms of silverware during the period of comparison.

The main complaint should not be the system or patterns per se but rather the results or more appositely the frustration of missed opportunities.

Leaving aside the disappointment of the World Cup defeat to Argentina, a result disproportionately influenced by injuries, Ireland drew with a good Welsh team and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Paris.

In both those Six Nations matches it was human frailty rather than system error in attack that scuppered chances to win.

Ireland didn’t score a try against France, only the third time they have drawn a blank under Schmidt, coincidentally the exact same tally or try-less games for the 29 matches during Kidney’s time.

Dry spell

Hopefully the similarities end there because in matches 30, 31 and 33 – World Cup warm-up games in 2011 – during the Corkman’s time the Irish team ran into a bit of a dry spell try-wise, failing to score any.

It is the substance rather than style that is the issue. It’s worth scratching the surface. The next set of statistics emanating from Twickenham on Saturday can be used to mitigate or castigate, based on perspective: choose your category.