Analysis: Jackman on Ireland's leaders in Wales

By Bernard Jackman

This is a huge occasion. The winner will probably go on to win the tournament and for Ireland, victory would bring a Grand Slam within touching distance.

For two of our players it is a personal milestone.

Jonathan Sexton becomes only the third Irish out-half to win 50 caps and Paul O'Connell becomes only the fourth Irish player to win 100 caps.

I was fortunate to have played with both men and it's no coincidence that they both are probably two of the most competitive individuals in the game.

They are also selfless. Their only focus on Saturday (2.30pm, live on RTÉ 2) will be on the team and what can they do to help Ireland win.

There is lots of speculation that Paul may retire post Rugby World Cup and that is a decision that he will make himself, but in terms of form, ability to influence a match and capacity to lead the team he is still in the peaks of his powers.

He is an intelligent rugby tactician but his greatest strength as a captain is that he understands people and has very high emotional intelligence.

From a young age he had an aura about him and you knew he was a bit special. I think with Joe Schmidt's detail and Paul's ability to push the right buttons emotionally we have an outstanding coach-captain relationship.

"His greatest strength as a captain is that he understands people and has very high emotional intelligence"

We will need them to be.

Wales are another step up from England. They are a more experienced side and they have home advantage. They have bounced back brilliantly from a disastrous start against England in Cardiff on the opening night.

The Welsh media have been suggesting that their regions clean sweep over the Irish provinces last weekend is a sign of their improving strength in depth but I believe it will have no relevance whatsoever. It is more significant that they have only beaten us twice in Cardiff since 1983.

That said, Wales have been successful at international level under Warren Gatland despite their regions generally struggling to make an impact.

Gatland has come in for some criticism and ridicule in the Irish media this week and to be honest I think we need to be careful we stay humble and respectful.

We are very fortunate that we have in Schmidt a man that I believe to be the best coach in the world at the moment and he has an excellent staff.

But Gatland's achievements are very impressive. It's a results business and he has won Heineken Cups, Aviva Premierships, the ITM Cup with Waikato, the Six Nations, a Grand Slam and a Lions series.

I have seen the terms 'Warren-ball' and 'Gatland-ball' being used in a condescending way but I think that as a player you want your coach to have a strong philosophy on how his team want to play and then have the coaching skill-set to be able to implement it.

I agree that Wales are fairly predictable but you still have to stop them. Gatland has a good eye for a player and picks players to complement his philosophy.

I would use the phrase 'Execution over Evolution' to sum up the Wales philosophy. They try and concentrate on their strengths and implement them as efficiently as possible rather than catch teams by surprise by changing things up.

With ball in hand they are probably the most 'same way' focused side in world rugby. By that I mean their core belief is to 'outwork' and 'bully' teams by building phases in the same direction all the way to the other touchline and then changing direction an doing the same thing again.

You need to be fit to do this and Gatland places huge emphasis on the intensity that they train at and the conditioning work done in Poland.

In fact there was talk that Wales did a week of conditioning in the lead up to their first-round defeat against England as they were putting in the ground work for the World Cup.

Gatland demands high standards and as we have seen is not afraid to make tough selection calls.

I played under him in Connacht at the start of his coaching career and while he doesn't say a huge amount he is very very astute and creates a good team environment.

Defensively Wales are one of the few teams that rush from the outside although they do like to vary things up with 'dummy shooters' making them more unpredictable than they were previously.

The rush defence can be hard to break down but like every system it has its weak points. Sexton's ability to take the ball to the gain line will be crucial in unlocking it.

Rhys Webb is a very good player with the ball in hand but I felt watching the Wales v France match that his coverage of the chip kick was not as good as it should be and I am sure Ireland will have some plays in mind to exploit this.

Winning away from home at Test level is all about good defence. Ireland's has been miserly, conceding just one try in the three matches played so far.

Our discipline has also been very very good and it is important that we stay on the right side of Wayne Barnes, not least because Leigh Halfpenny is a kicking machine.

Tactically I think Ireland will have designed a few strike plays to target little vacuums in the Welsh defence but in general our game plan will stay largely the same with a good balance of kicking and applying pressure in the air and at the breakdown.

The one area I think we will see a change though is our use of the lineout maul. It was a real weapon last season.

Wales coped well with the French maul in Paris but even though they are lighter, I think Ireland's pack are better technically and can milk penalties with driving play.

Despite all the talk about our kicking game we have played more phases than any other team in the competition and Conor Murray has made more passes.

Tries have been harder to come by for all the teams in the tournament which is a sign that defences are getting on top.

Speed of recycling is key to unlocking defences and I think the refs need to be less tolerant of players off their feet slowing down the ruck ball and that offside lines need to be supervised better.

Ireland have to adapt to that and what they do is play territory very well and force penalties. Sexton has only missed one kick from 11 so far. His recovery from his hamstring strain is massive.

To win 11 games consecutively at any level is incredibly difficult but we are on the verge of it.

The way Ireland are playing at the moment is very, very hard to play against. I think that Wales will just come up short and we will go to Edinburgh with a Grand Slam on the line.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Analysis: Jackman on Ireland's leaders in Wales

Dengan url

http://olahragaenjoy.blogspot.com/2015/03/analysis-jackman-on-irelands-leaders-in.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Analysis: Jackman on Ireland's leaders in Wales

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Analysis: Jackman on Ireland's leaders in Wales

sebagai sumbernya

Olahraga Enjoy