Ireland coach addresses ‘misconception’ on Jacques Nienaber system’s impact on the national team

Ireland assistant coach Simon Easterby says that the Jacques Nienaber-led Leinster defence is not a hindrance to the Test team.

Since his arrival at Leinster, much has been made of the former Springboks head coach’s defensive structure and how it differs from that of Easterby’s at Ireland.

With the Irish province providing the vast majority of the players to the Test set-up, many believe that it would be more beneficial if the two structures were more closely aligned to get the best results at the international level.

It doesn’t serve Ireland

Legendary centre Brian O’Driscoll argues that Ireland and Leinster don’t have the same kind of players that South Africa do to properly implement Nienaber’s structure, as they don’t have ‘enough big collision winners’.

Speaking to Off The Ball in January, he said that Leinster’s structures are problematic for Ireland ahead of the Six Nations.

“This defensive system is problematic for Ireland because they have to go and undo it all. It’s very difficult to flip from one to the other,” he said.

“Your process is totally different, your decision-making is totally different, and it doesn’t serve Ireland well.”

Easterby disagrees with the former Ireland skipper as he believes that the national team benefits from the different structures that are implemented across the four provinces.

“There’s a bit of a misconception around that, and I think our defence benefits from all the provinces in terms of what they do, and they’ve all got slight nuances within their defensive systems,” he told reporters when specifically asked about Nienaber’s structure.

“Maybe one system is slightly more different than another, but no one’s completely aligned. So when we come to camp, we’re fortunate that we have a lot of players doing the same types of things, and sometimes there are players that do something slightly different.”

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Provinces do things slightly differently

Ireland’s player selection policy means that they only pick from the likes of Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster. A significantly smaller pool of players compared to this week’s opponents, with Fabien Galthie able to select from 14 clubs in France’s top division and can even dip into the 16 Pro D2 clubs.

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Easterby says that Ireland cannot use a lack of alignment as an excuse for any defensive frailties.

“For us, we’ve only got four teams, some teams have a lot more players, we can’t use that as an excuse,” he continued.

“It’s really about the individuals and how they prepare to play in an Irish jersey and we’ll take good bits from all of the different provinces in terms of the defence and the attack – we have always done that.

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“That’s the beauty of how strong we can be in such a short space of time. I like what goes on in the provinces. I like what they do, I like the fact that they do things slightly differently from us because when they come into us, it’s a nice little challenge, and that makes me feel like I’m looking forward to coming to work and getting us on the same page.

“We use some bits, strong bits of others and we use other bits, and hopefully that makes us strong as a unit.”

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