One more kick
Hasn’t Johnny Sexton left himself a sweet arrangement other than a Grand Slam win next Saturday against England. His first kick against Scotland for 3-0 left him five points behind Ronan O’Gara’s 557 points Six Nations record. His conversion for the James Lowe try left him with three points to kick if he wanted to overtake the O’Gara mark. Then Jack Conan scored another Irish try on 62 minutes and Sexton again converted to draw level with the O’Gara tally with about 20 minutes to go in the game.
It seemed that it was all going to happen in Murrayfield until Andy Farrell stepped in to replace Sexton on 70 minutes with Ross Byrne charged with seeing out the match. Now O’Gara and Sexton are level on 557 points with one match remaining. Nice timing.
Replacement power
The depth of the Irish bench was explored by John O’Sullivan in this publication on Saturday. That replacement power was played out to a tee against Scotland as players tumbled out of the match injured and Ireland patched up and made do wonderfully. When Ronan Kelleher hurt himself, it was clearly to his upper body. He played on but flanker Josh van der Flier stepped up to take the lineout throws all through the second half. Although limited to picking out Peter O’Mahony at the front, the openside transitioned beautifully to adapt to an entirely new task.
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So too prop Cian Healy, who came into the game and played hooker in contested scrums. What a shift from the frontrow, who has played tighthead prop, loosehead prop and now hooker. Respect.
The unknown
Contact, pace, offload, power. Many things featured in the record win France had over England on Saturday. But when Steve Borthwick comes to pick his English team to face Ireland in Dublin, Andy Farrell will not know if it is family he is going to face or cheeky chap Marcus Smith. Smith had a torrid time at 10 for England, not least of all at the end of the first half when the French burst forward.
Flanker Charles Ollivon began his charge towards the line, glanced up, saw Smith, then put his head down and continued to run straight over him to score a try. When the Harlequins outhalf got up, England were 27-3 down, the highest score ever against them in a first half Six Nations match at Twickenham. Of all the problems on show England also have an outhalf issue.
Injuries
Irish number 8 Caelan Doris, hooker Dan Sheehan and lock Iain Henderson all left the pitch with injuries within the first 25 minutes of Ireland’s game in Edinburgh, an astonishing attrition rate even for rugby. Replacement hooker Ronan Kelleher later went off injured and outside Garry Ringrose also left the field towards the end of the match.
Given that Ireland have only a six day turn around before meeting England on Saturday for a possible Grand Slam finish to the Championship in Dublin, a number of players who were not included in Sunday’s 23-man squad are likely to be getting a call this week from coach Andy Farrell. In positional terms, both hookers struggling for fitness may put some pressure on for the finale in Aviva Stadium.
Backlash
People were flooding out of Twickenham before the match against France was completed. That does not often happen at Six Nations Championship games in London. One of the fans interviewed walking away from the stadium said it was the worst England performance he had ever seen but put a positive spin on the record score. It can’t get any worse, he advised before saying that they will have to be better in Dublin.
The England backlash was available to supporters even before the match against France was over. Whatever Steve Borthwick is thinking, denying Ireland a Grand Slam in Dublin and a deep sense of embarrassment felt by a team at base level, is likely to inform his players how they must play in Dublin to avoid a similar scenario.
