Few people know the Six Nations as well as Simon Easterby, who played in nine of them and has coached in another 10. His first tournament launch as interim Irish head coach was new terrain, but he looked utterly at ease and as if he belonged alongside his five counterparts of contrasting experience.
Easterby will be the one with the biggest target on his back, too, given he inherits a team who are back-to-back champions. How do you follow that?
“Win a third,” he said, smiling. “I mean, that’s the challenge isn’t it, and it’s great because would you rather be in this position or you’d rather be ...” – he left the alternatives hanging in the Rome air.
“We know it’s going to be tough. We’ve spoken about [how] it could be down to the bounce of the ball. There are so many factors, so many fine margins in these games and more so probably than in the autumn, when there’s not as much jeopardy. There’s not as much riding on them, there’s not bonus points that contribute to where you finish in the table.
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“So why wouldn’t we feel like that’s something to chase down? I’m not saying it’s definitely going to happen, but we’ve got to go and give it a good crack and put ourselves in a position to do something special. Because I do believe this team has produced some really special periods of rugby over the last couple of years,” he said, citing those titles, the series win in New Zealand and the drawn series in South Africa.
“This is another thing that they are genuinely motivated to keep producing and keep performing, and the result of that might be something really special. But we’re going to make sure that we don’t look too far ahead as well.”
Easterby will maintain his role as defence coach but coaches from the provinces will be brought into the fold in the build-up to the England-Ireland ‘A’ game in Bristol on the Sunday after the third-round clash against Wales in Cardiff.
A 26-man squad will also be named for that ‘A’ game during the week of the round-two matches, when Ireland are away to Scotland. That squad will probably dip into the senior 36-man squad that will travel to the Algarve for a week’s training on Wednesday.
Dan Sheehan and James Lowe will join them after making their comebacks from injury in Leinster’s URC game against the Stormers at the Aviva Stadium next Saturday. Jack Boyle will remain with his province this week to play that game, as will Caolin Blade in Connacht’s game away to Glasgow.
Jacques Nienaber’s influence at Leinster is a fairly radical shift in philosophy for the bulk suppliers to the Irish squad – they provide 23 of the 36 players – but Easterby cited the province’s 47-21 win over Bath last Saturday.
“I know the game broke up a bit on the weekend but you saw the way they played with the ball in hand and the skill sets and the intent to go and attack Bath.
“I still feel like there’s a genuine intent for what they’re doing at Leinster and yes, a different voice Jacques has. But there’s still some real quality in that group in terms their coaching and I don’t think it’s just one voice.”
The Irish squad have reassembled just six weeks after the November Tests.
“You stay connected with them all the time and they understand our game and it’s important that there will be a few nuances within our game compared to Munster or Leinster or Connacht or Ulster. But essentially I feel like there’s more continuity because there’s been less time away, less time apart from each other. I don’t feel like what any of the provinces are doing will be contradictory to what we want to do.”
Easterby and Caelan Doris flew from Rome to Lisbon after the Six Nations launch, from where they drove to Quinta do Lago. As in November, Johnny Sexton will again be in and out of the squad, pending work commitments, in his background role as a mentor to the Irish outhalves.
“We’re really pleased that he wants to continue that connection and we feel like the players and the coaches have benefited from that because he comes in and looks at the game in a different way as he did as a player,” said Easterby. “He was almost another coach on the pitch anyway, as a player. So he’s been a great addition and that will continue in the same vein throughout the Six Nations.”
