'It helps when the head coach is massively into defence as well and knows how important it is. It spreads through the group.'
SOMETIMES THE STATISTICS don’t tell the full story. Across Saturday’s absorbing 32-19 defeat of France in Dublin, Andy Farrell’s Ireland squad clocked up 38 missed tackles.
“Maybe Penaud and Dumortier had something on their legs, they seemed to be pretty difficult to put down,” Easterby replied when Ireland’s high missed tackle count was put to him yesterday. “They might have greased up for the game. I think sometimes the missed tackles need to be put in context. What we actually get from the outcome can be very different to… ‘Missed tackle’ might sound bad but actually the outcome can be different. Obviously we want as few missed tackles as we can get.” Overall, Easterby was understandably pleased with Ireland’s defensive effort against last year’s Grand Slam winners.
So what did Easterby make of that one try conceded on Saturday, a brilliant French effort which saw Damian Penaud go the length of the pitch, via a smart interchange with Anthony Jelonch. Could Ireland have handled that passage of play better? “We could definitely have mitigated and avoided getting to that position where Penaud gets the second touch and make sure that we’re not allowing them to get that far up the field from the position of strength that we were in, and then obviously we’re scrambling and trying to recover and we don’t get to him.
To beat a France side of such quality in the manner they did should further boost the confidence of a side who are currently wearing the tag of world number one with style.
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