FOR THOSE WHO believe that defence wins tournaments, Ireland’s defeat to England at the Women’s World Cup yesterday was an irresistible case study.
After offering up aggressive line speed in the pool wins over the US, New Zealand and Kazakhstan, Philip Doyle’s side fell into a passive mood in their defensive duties at Stade Jean-Bouin, repeatedly giving up yards to England and struggling to turn over possession.
Ireland’s attacking chances were few and far between in the second half, largely down to England’s dominance on the ball.
“Yeah, I think we helped them a little bit in that, didn’t we?” said Ireland hooker Gillian Bourke. “We were very passive in defence. Towards the second half, we didn’t have line speed in their face.
We were letting people twice the size of us ran at us and hit us. Instead of doing what we have done, and getting off the line and being in their faces. That’s something that ruled the day really.”
Fullback Niamh Briggs pointed out that the quality of England’s wide passing game, which was once again world-class, often made if difficult for Ireland to press up hard in defence.
“England are very good at spinning the ball wide, so we knew that we couldn’t rush up at times. We needed to be able to cover that outside space. But look, we didn’t have the intensity that we’ve had in previous games and that’s what’s really disappointing for us.”
The absence of that defensive bite was sorely apparent throughout the encounter, drawing screams of “line speed, line speed, hit!” from Ireland’s coaching staff in the stands of the Parisian venue.
“We stood back and let them run at us,” said captain Fiona Coghlan. “There were too many missed tackles. We said we couldn’t let that happen and we did. Credit to them, they identified where we were sitting back and they exploited it.”
One by-product of Ireland’s passivity was the invitation for England’s centre Emily Scarratt and other outside backs to run at soft outside shoulders, an offer they were more than willing to repeatedly accept.
“I think in the first half especially, any time they got the ball to the 13 channel, they were getting in behind us,” admits Bourke. “As a team, you’re then travelling backwards, and it’s hard to put line speed on from that back foot.”
Loosehead prop Coghlan feels she and her fellow forwards could have done more to prevent Scarratt from thriving to the extent she did.
She’s a lethal player, world-class. She took every chance that she got. I suppose as a pack we probably didn’t help our backs on the inside and probably gave her too much space on the outside to run.”
It’s a vicious cycle. Fail to win the advantage line in defence and it becomes increasingly difficult on the subsequent phase. Stopping the ball at source seems like the only option in such a case, but Bourke points out that Ireland had difficulties in that regard too.
“We were trying to get a jackal on the ball at most breakdowns. They [England] do tend to travel quite isolated, but at the same time, they are efficient in their rucking. As well as that, our penalty count is something that’s let us down a little bit in this tournament.
“It let us down a bit today when we let them have a few free shots at the posts. We were wary of that throughout the match, so there were periods where we weren’t contesting for the ball and trying to fan out and put a bit of line speed on them.
“It just didn’t happen; we worked very individually today as opposed to as units.”
