Ireland’s Defence and Fantastic Rucking
Ireland, Six Nations champions once again. A look at their fantastic defence and why even if Irish players are not dotted all over the “official” Six Nations stats leaderboards they’re still doing plenty of valuable work. Oh, and rucking stats might be mentioned.
Published in the Irish Times on Wednesday, March 24th 2015.
Twice every week the yellow pages of Midi Olympique appear on French newsagents’ shelves. A journal dedicated solely to rugby, it last week dedicated a full page to a specific piece of technique to improve breakdown speed. Midol journalist Nicolas Zanardi used Joe Schmidt’s Ireland as an example, a team that makes up for its offloading “deficiency” by its mastery of “le jeu au sol”. The ground game.
But first, to defence. Championship-winning defence. In a Six Nations tournament that will rightly be remembered for the try-scoring fireworks of the final day (27 tries in all) Ireland won that title through its protection of the tryline, most memorably characterised by Jamie Heaslip’s remarkable tackle on Stuart Hogg. Fifty-six points conceded, 37 fewer than Wales and 44 fewer than England. That’s the largest difference between the best and second-best defence since the Six Nations began in 2000.
