Paul O’Connell: The crucial aspect Ireland ‘need to improve on’ in crunch clash with France
Ireland forwards coach Paul O'Connell laughing.
Although Ireland are setting the pace at the top of Six Nations standings after three rounds, their defence is an area of concern ahead of next weekend’s highly anticipated clash against France.
Ireland are the only unbeaten team left in this year’s Championship – after securing victories over England, Scotland and Wales – but their overall defensive effort left a lot to be desired in their hard-fought 27-18 triumph over the Welsh in Cardiff last week.
The men from the Emerald Isle and Wales scored two tries apiece but what was concerning for the visitors was that they missed 33 tackles which was just one more than Italy missed against France in Rome the next day as Les Bleus cruised to a 73-24 victory.
Defence highlighted at team review
The Azzurri conceded a whopping 11 tries in that game, which shows how fine the margins are in the Six Nations, and Ireland forwards coach Paul O’Connell admitted that his side’s defending was highlighted by interim head coach Simon Easterby at their review of the Wales clash last Monday.
“It was mentioned alright, it is something that is less important than it was but is still very important,” he said.
“I think Simon spoke about the ‘D’ in the review and he’s looking for us to go up another level at times, probably at all parts of our game.
“At times – we’ve delivered really well what we’re hoping to do.
“At other times we’ve slipped off a little a bit. Simon spoke about it for sure on Wednesday for his review. It’s something we need to improve on.”
Although France come to Dublin having suffered one defeat in the Championship, O’Connell is wary of their opponents and expects Les Bleus to push them all the way.
“They were very good against England as well and but for a few handling errors in really tough conditions, the scoreline could have been very, very different,” he said.
“It’s a very different challenge to what we’re used to. A lot of teams play very structured rugby, they’re a little bit different.
France ‘put a lot of pressure on your ruck ball’
“Big challenge at the ruck then as well. They tend to put a lot of pressure on your ruck ball. I think they’ve gathered a lot of experience over the last few years and they’ve had the same coaching staff over the last few years,
“They’ve that continuity of players and coaching staff similar to what we do. They understand what they do inside out. They’ve had some bad days like we’ve had, you get to reflect on it and put a few things in place that stops it from happening again.”
While much has been said and written about the influence of France’s captain Antoine Dupont, O’Connell feels Les Bleus also have other outstanding players and highlighted the threat posed by second-row Thibaud Flament.
“He’s obviously a very good second-row forward and he does all the second-row stuff very well, he’s very adept at that Toulouse way of playing. He’s been excellent for France in the last few years, he’s a big part of the challenge for us,” he said.
“RG Snyman I suppose would be a similar sort, he offloads high, he’s very happy running high, offloading high, and passing high, and very good at helping his team get in behind the opposition.
“A very good reader of quick ball as well, of when it’s on to go and do something. He’s a good athlete as well, a lot of these guys that create bits of space through an offload or a carry, they generally accelerate quite well.”
