Andy Farrell’s men have width in their defence while New Zealand could kick to find space in their titanic quarter-final
Throughout the World Cup pool stages, Ireland’s ruthless edge in attack has impressed me but it was their defensive resilience against Scotland which really caught my eye. The match was set up for them - all the pressure was on Scotland - but their execution on both sides of the ball was spot-on and that is a hallmark of Andy Farrell’s side.
You could see Scotland trying to move the point of attack, Finn Russell did look threatening at times, but the connection of Ireland’s defensive line made it so difficult to break down. Even when their line was breached they scrambled magnificently. They have the ability to “save tries”, even when it became unstructured and that forced Scotland to look for plan B, C and D.If you sit and watch, what catches the eye is the microchat within the defensive system which is most impressive.
New Zealand do have the smarts, however, and they have the players to break down the Ireland defence. That means it will come down to whether their pack can keep relentlessly wearing down the Ireland defence. I’m not sure whether they have the ability to do that for 80 minutes but if they can, there’s more than enough quality in the backline to cause Ireland problems. It’s a different New Zealand side to the oneagainst Ireland in Wellington last year.
The All Blacks will need to have a big think about how they set up to defend. South Africa showed a significantly different approach against Ireland, compared with Scotland. They tried to put Ireland under pressure with their line speed and enjoyed a degree of success. They forced errors and made it a lot harder to play. They made the pods off nine play early and put the skillset under pressure.
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