Joe Schmidt was late with yesterday's lunchtime announcement of the Irish side to face France, because he was still finalising it.
In the event, the side half picked itself with Simon Zebo’s knee strain and Keith Earls’ concussion ruling them out of contention, but it rather puts the great style debate in context too.
Admittedly, the return of the Kearneys, Rob and Dave, along with Sean O'Brien (Tommy O'Donnell dropping to the bench to the exclusion of the unlucky Rhys Ruddock) means Ireland retain ten of their starting line-up from the World Cup pool win in Cardiff last October. France, in contrast, retain only three of their starting XV.
Yet, bearing in mind the clamour for a more expansive game, given the constraints imposed by the six-day turnaround and those aforementioned injury concerns, Ireland have no option but to fall back on work already done.
Unit drills
After Monday’s recovery day, on Tuesday the Irish squad had a light 32-minute work-out, another rest day on Wednesday, and then a 63-minute session yesterday.
Basic, organisational stuff, for the most part. Kick-off receptions and what France do off lineouts and scrums, unit drills accounted for 20 minutes of Tuesday’s session and 25 minutes of yesterday.
“You are very limited so to talk about creating a style or developing a style, it can be a little bit of a moot point particularly in a week like this where you have got new personnel coming in,” noted Schmidt with a wry smile. But against that, his time with both Ireland and Leinster over the last six seasons reassures him that core values will be compensate for the lack of preparation time.
“You are always confident that you are going to get the work ethic from an Irish team.
“I don’t think I have ever been involved either with Leinster or with the Irish side where there hasn’t been a real intensity to the application of the job at hand. And so that always gives you confidence because you are not quite as organised as you would like to be.”
Work ethic
“If you have had late changes you still know the work ethic is going to be there and that is hopefully going to create enough opportunity that you can tip the balance on the scoreboard. One of the great things about sport is nobody is utterly confident because with the vagaries of sport you just don’t know what that result is going to be at the end of the 80 minutes. But one thing we can be confident of is performance -wise that the players will give their utmost and sometimes you are just hoping that that is enough to get the result.”
Hence, the development of an offloading game may wait.
“I think offloads either have the propensity to be incredibly beneficial or a bit of a nightmare. You get one or another,” said Schmidt, although Ireland will assuredly be alert to the possibilities of attacking off turnovers ala two years ago in Paris.
Furthermore, the timing of a visit to Paris can have such a profound effect. Four seasons ago, of course, the corresponding fixture on this same round two weekend was postponed just before kick-off. By contrast two seasons ago, on the fifth and final weekend, Ireland won by three tries to two and 22-20 to clinch the title.
Akin to the former, conditions could also well militate against what might otherwise have been a relatively high-scoring game.
“As bad a weather forecaster as I am, it is supposed to be quite windy and potentially drizzly as well, so it could come down to a really important set-piece battle for us.”
France’s remodelled tight five sets new challenges, as does a squad starting out under a new coaching ticket.
While Ireland would like to win the territory battle, Schmidt is also mindful of the risks entailed in a kicking game that gives France space to counter-attack.
"France are a team who can score from five metres out from their own line. They've got guys with enough speed, certainly if you've seen Vakatawa playing sevens, Maxime Médard with the pace that he's got, and obviously Teddy Thomas, who nearly did it to us last year . .," said Schmidt, recalling how Mike Ross, of all people, just about prevented the flying winger from breaking clear.
"I think you've just got to be on high alert the whole time. [Yacouba] Camara is a guy who could probably go the length, he's that much of an athlete as well. Damien Chouly, he probably will still feel a little bit aggrieved that he got in, in the corner two years ago. While we say, 'have we got confidence from winning in France?', Doussain missed a kick that day, they got a forward pass which was certainly a fair call at the time, but I don't think Pascal Papé had to make a forward pass and Chouly might have got over in the corner."
“So for us, we just feel we’re going to be tested more this week than we were last week, in different sorts of ways. Last week, Wales are a huge team with really good continuity and they made it incredibly tough. These guys make it incredibly tough in different ways.”
IRELAND: R Kearney; A Trimble, J Payne, R Henshaw, D Kearney; J Sexton, C Murray; J McGrath, R Best (capt), N White; M McCarthy, D Toner; CJ Stander, S O'Brien, J Heaslip.
Replacements: R Strauss, J Cronin, T Furlong, D Ryan, T O'Donnell, E Reddan, I Madigan, F McFadden.
