D’Arcy says it doesn’t look good for Ireland
Former Ireland and British & Irish Lions midfield player Gordon D’Arcy said Andy Farrell’s men had made an inauspicious start to their Steinlager Series New Zealand tour with two losses, and there was little to suggest it would get any better.
In his Irish Times column, D’Arcy said it wasn’t the losses to the Maori All Blacks in Hamilton and the All Blacks in Auckland that disappointed, it was the performances that were of most concern.
“When a team preps diligently, no one anticipates a situation where performances are undermined by being sloppy and inaccurate in handling, and the set piece,” he said.
“The focus is on being accurate in every detail, managing the game intelligently, and being ruthless in taking opportunities.
“Ireland managed to cover very little of those tasks adequately, and the way the performance disintegrated in a nine-minute spell before the interval of the first Test was eye-opening,” he said.
After that, the prospects did not look any brighter heading into the second Test, and beyond, at the weekend under the Forsyth Barr Stadium roof in Dunedin.
“New Zealand, the second-best side in the world rankings, will be better in performance terms than in their 42-19 victory, but the more salient question is will Ireland? The jury is out on that one,” D’Arcy said.
Coach Andy Farrell asked for the two midweek games against the Maori All Blacks because he wanted to build depth available to the national side and D’Arcy said it was clear Ireland’s talent pool lacked depth.
D’Arcy was concerned with the form of players ahead of the tour and what had been seen as weaknesses among Ireland’s provinces were repeated against the All Blacks.
“The set piece is an important tenet in Ireland’s attacking patterns; New Zealand managed to easily disrupt that platform to the tune of four or five turnovers.
“The All Blacks tend to not give you many scrum feeds due to the high quality of their skill base,” he said.
D’Arcy said when opposing sides managed to get to Ireland’s set piece and breakdown, the Irish suffered.
He questioned whether there were enough players outside the ‘first choice’ players to allow Ireland to compete with other nations with any consistency.
“The short answer is that there is clearly a lack of strength in depth capable of playing in the highest echelons of Test rugby,” he said.
The situation was compounded with injuries in key positions, especially in the tight five.
D’Arcy said there wasn’t a lot of wriggle room in freshening the side.
“Picking more or less the same 23 after a pretty bruising encounter from which Ireland emerged on the wrong side of the scoreboard, and expecting a different result, smacks of blind faith.
“Changing the outcome will require more than simply tuning performance values,” D’Arcy said.
“Ireland will look to adapt to the New Zealand attack shape, improve their accuracy in defence, and feel they can genuinely go again this week.”
The goal had to be winning the Test, issues surrounding future prospects at first five-eighths would have to be addressed later. A win in Dunedin would give the tour more life, with the chance to look at the development side in the final week.
But a loss would be an all-black scenario for the last week, D’Arcy said.