Match Review: Ireland v South Africa; Nov 10th Aviva; Stadium

leftleg

After this brief pause for fresh ideas, normal service resumes

A pity really, Ireland looked great for about 31 minutes and then it all went pear shaped.
Ireland started brightly, looking to play in the bok’s 22 as much as possible. Knowing that they could eek out penalties through Bok indiscipline proved getting 12 nearly unanswered points a lot easier than most had thought before the game. Strauss and Healy were to the fore in this first 30. The team in general displayed, what I think is the type of game Declan has always wanted.



Hard Defence
Sexton and D’arcy pressed up high very fast with Earls arriving late on the line in defence. It was fast and very high but it was also very effective. Anyone doing their homework could see the Boks were never going wide. Meyer seems to like his wingers to come back inside or his centre’s to crash the defence. Lucky for Ireland and in particular Tommy Bowe in defence as on a number of occasions, he was the only player wide as the Boks never went more than 2 phases past Lambie. Sexton and Darcy also had Chris Henry and Strauss coming in late to rob and slow ball to great effect, especially in the period from the 15th minute to the 25th minute.

The zenith of Irelands attacking game came in the 28th minute when Ireland won yet another ball on the ground and elected to take the quick one. South Africa gave a small warning of what was to come. They took a lineout and attempted to turn it into a maul. Ireland disrupted well and eventually Strauss got his body over the ensuing crash ball first phase and turned the ball over. Murray showed awareness and speed to take the ball quickly under the nose of Wayne Barnes and give it straight to the en-rushing Sexton. At this stage the Africans had barely turned to face the ball, never mind chase the game. Sexton fed a gorgeously timed inside pass to Tommy Bowe who was arriving to it a full belt. It’s that pass that made the move happen. Sexton took the pass right to the gain line right under Etzebeth’s nose. The inside-pass fooled both him and tight head Du Plessis. The quick recycling followed from both Murray and Earls. For a moment Ireland wrestled free of mediocrity. Towards the end of the move though there was another quick reminder of Ireland’s now famous narrowness under Kidney. The move ended up going lateral in the Bok’s 22 till McCarthy picked it up on the wing. All good you might say, except, there was no winger on the outside to take the next phase. McCarthy looked momentarily bamboozled, not by what was in-front of him, no it was what was missing to his right. Still he took it into contact very low and eeked a few meters from the contact. In the meantime Ireland and earned advantage and slotted to the easy 3 to make it 12-3. Moments later J.P. Pieterson did his best impression of a crash test dummy on Chris Henry and got himself binned and Ireland kicked off there to win the game.



Except they didn’t. South Africa slowed the game down and then remembered there maul thanks to an early Christmas present from Andrew Trimble. Jamie Heaslip tried to slow the ball down under the nose of Wayne Barnes and saw yellow and the Boks got themselves back in and eventually the win with a one dimensional but effective game plan in the second half. Ireland, once again under Kidney, failed to come up with a plan B. Unlike last November, when Radge ran the show coming off the bench or in 2010 when BOD stole a draw against Oz, this time Ireland’s number was up. The Africans sat back, cosy in the knowledge that this Irish team has only one book of songs and never deviates from that book. So easy was it that the last kick of the game was Radge giving the Boks the ball back, like it was 2009 in loftus all over again. Hard luck Ronan, at least you tried.



Wales and Ireland: the same but different

While watching the Wales v Argentina game, it dawned on me, actually it was my semi-rugby literate brother who dawned it on me. He said “jeez, I love this amazing style Argentina play with. Really fluid southern hemisphere style play. Everyone gets involved.” I sat back and thought about it.
The first half of the game was a show of offloading in the tackle by forwards. Keep in mind that you can only offload if the support is there. The Pumas backs aren’t gargantuan in size or power. What’s the secret so? From what I could see, when it’s on, everyone goes for it. Not only that but multiple players attack the gain-line at pace close to the ball carrier. Jamie Roberts proved ineffective for the 13 minutes he was on the field. And this was an Argentinian defence missing there lynchpin 13 in Marcello Bosch. For anyone watching the rugby championship over the summer, Bosch showed any budding 13 how to defend the outside channel. His decision making in defence, when to come up high and when to drift kept the pumas close in a number of their games.



Wales on the other hand looked stodgy and at times devoid of a proper game plan. More importantly when the big booper Jamie went off at half time, they also lost the space and time Priestland enjoys after receiving first phase from a Roberts crash ball. They seemed to become frustrated with the Argentine tight defence which, as I mentioned fluctuates between rush and drift to great effect. Wales, by the second half looked beaten and finished just like Ireland and were left to shuffling laterally and getting turned over easy by a mixture of swarm defence and schoolboy errors. Wales scored 3 points in the second half, Argentina scored 20. At least Wales did better than Ireland’s second half. We didn’t score at all. Yet commonly the losing streak continues.



The Michael Bent show:

70:28. Michael Bent enters the fray with as a straight sub for Mike Ross, who was out on his feet, grimacing as trotted of the pitch. I suspect his grimace was more for the fact that he had cost Ireland 3 valuable points and eventually the win at the hands of his Leinster front row team mate Heinke Van De Merve. Bent’s first duty, stop the Bok front row from pushing his head out his backside. What struck me first about him was that he was very small and nimble and resembled more of a loosehead than a tight head in body shape. Most importantly he is short legs and, as such, can get very low at crouch time. He also, as it happens possesses a very straight back at crouch time which makes him able to push in on the hit and get under his loosehead. The first scrum he took was a big one from the Boks. They got a good hit mashing into the gap in unison. Bent took the force of it and immediately buckled. You could quite clearly see Chris Henry pushed back from his flank by the initial hit. Just as Reddan took the ball out of the scrum though, bent managed to twist his head in under Heinke as they all came up allowing the back of the scrum to stabilise. It seemed miniscule but had a double meaning. It allowed Reddan to attack of the scrum and gave Heinke a warning that Michael Bent was seriously on the pitch. A knock on ensued straight away and the packs set themselves up again. Another Irish put in. This time it was on the Irish tight head’s terms. He’d allowed South Africa leeway on the first scrum as he needed a welcome but now they were outstaying there welcome. Again Bent got low for the hit. This time he got the hit right, crunching into the top of Van de Merve's outside shoulder and borrowing his head, neck and shoulder into Heinke’s left ear forcing him right down. For anybody who has seen Heinke scrummage, this is no mean feat, especially with a monster tight 5 behind him. Let’s be under no illusions here, this guy looks the real deal. He was only on for 10 minutes but it was he who gave me a bit of an inkling of optimism in this otherwise experimental feeling dull match.

Take a bow Michael Bent. I said in the preview, if you had the ability, you’re as Irish as I am. Welcome to Ireland Michael.

PS congrats to Mike McCarthy on getting the MOM gong, richly deserved and inspired me to include the afor-mentioned big hit that he will be remembered for. Finally something on youtube that he big man can be proud of. Quality.

Fiji cant come quick enough for this team and management ticket. It cannot be underestimated how short on ideas Ireland looked going forward. What are Gert, Less, Axel and more importantly Declan doing in Carton house? Watching re-runs of 2009 by the looks of it. The Soap Opera that is Irish International Rugby shows no happy ending in sight. Jack Duckworth would be turning in his grave at this Soap though. Awful stuff.

theKramer

Thanks for writing this. It was exactly what I was thinking but not articulate or knowledgeable enough to write it.

I was wondering were the first 40 minutes the way we are going to see Ireland go, or was that a flash in the pan and we are more likely to see more of the 2nd 40 minutes, where we look clueless going forward...

I guess the games against Fiji and Argentina will show which 40 minutes will be Ireland going forward...

ray jay

theKramer wrote: »

I was wondering were the first 40 minutes the way we are going to see Ireland go, or was that a flash in the pan and we are more likely to see more of the 2nd 40 minutes, where we look clueless going forward...

Well a big issue is that Ireland only looked as good as they did in the first half because SA were playing so poorly. One of the most important points leftleg made was that Ireland had no plan B, so as soon as the saffers sussed out how to counter us, we couldn't do anything. If Ireland line out against Argentina with the same game plan and our opponents have done their homework, we may not even get a decent 30 minutes like we saw on Saturday.