Ryan Baird has spent a good portion of his senior rugby career trying to convince observers there is more to him than the tagline of “athletic phenom”. Marvelling at the speed and dexterity housed in a 6ft 6in frame, particularly when he inveigles his way into Lilliput – or the backline to use the rugby term – it’s easy to be sidetracked by those razzle-dazzle moments.
A major stumbling block in his quest to elevate his game to elite practitioner at Test level is whether he has a consistent ability to attend to the mundane. This relates to the chores of his job spec as a secondrow or backrow forward – hitting rucks, clearing out and making tackles on the fringes.
There is a deep-seated suspicion that while lavishly gifted players are off gallivanting and enjoying life away from the close-combat drudgery, others have to take up the cudgels in their stead. Having made his debut for Leinster as a teenager and Ireland as a 21-year-old, Baird’s progress has been thwarted by holes in his game, combined with the excellence of rivals.
Peter O’Mahony’s retirement invited Baird to make a down payment on the Ireland number six jersey during the summer. He did so in emphatic fashion. Paul O’Connell – head coach for the tour before reverting to his role as forwards coach – isn’t someone to fawn or mollycoddle. He pursued and reached the highest standards as a player, so he has lofty standards and expectations.
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He spoke in praise of Baird’s “zero-talent stuff making a big impact” in the wake of his performance on a rainy night in Georgia. O’Connell’s observations from that day resonated in aspects of Baird’s performance at Soldier Field on Saturday.
“He’s figured a lot of things out,” O’Connell said. “It’s not easy, I suppose, sometimes when you’re a young player coming into an experienced group. But he’s getting better and better at his line-of-defence stuff. It’s a real point of difference for him.
“He’s very good at it himself, but he’s very good at owning it and leading it and delivering it to the other players as well. I think his physicality has come on massively as well. The accuracy of that physicality. The tackles are very clean. His back-end pressure on the tackle is very good.”
All of this was on show in Chicago against New Zealand. Baird was one of the few Ireland players who could reflect on their 80-minute performance with a degree of personal satisfaction, despite the disappointing nature of a 26-13 defeat.
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It didn’t start particularly well for Baird in his role as the team’s lineout caller; the first one went astray. It was a throw with no lift that will invariably make a hooker rethink his life choices. It had little to do with Dan Sheehan, though.
Baird was squeezed between Andrew Porter and James Ryan at two in the lineout, the most likely target, as Tadhg Beirne was minding his business with no support in the middle, while Tadhg Furlong was the tail-end Tadhg without a portfolio, albeit he nearly rescued the throw. A thumping tackle on New Zealand scrumhalf Cam Roigard allowed Baird to make a deposit on the positive side of the ledger.
Beirne’s ejection meant Baird had to run a lineout without a secondrow for 20 minutes. While Ireland’s return from their throw was just 69 per cent (11/16), he did the sensible thing in calling ball on himself at two. Four of the throws pilfered, two were to the middle, two to the back.
He also came up with a couple of vital steals on New Zealand throws five metres from the Irish line. Twice he got in the air, once without being lifted, on an All Blacks throw; because he contested, Codie Taylor throws were adjudged crooked. He also forced them to cough up a penalty in that facet of the game too. Being penalised for jumping across the gap was his only misstep.
He was sharp on both sides of the ball, making 12 tackles, arguably the most important to thwart the ever-dangerous Will Jordan as the New Zealand fullback weaved his way through green shirts and threatened to explode into the open country of the Irish backfield.
[ Five things we learned from Ireland’s 26-13 defeat to New ZealandOpens in new window ]
O’Connell’s words about Baird’s capacity to make clean, proactive tackles and contest hard at the ensuing breakdown was obvious on several occasions. He also managed to get to the edges on the rare occasions his team worked the ball to the wider channels.
In the first such instance, he took a long cut-out pass from Jamison Gibson-Park and quickly appraised the landscape, cutting back infield to link up with his support rather than risk becoming isolated and turning over possession. The second, he ran over All Blacks wing Leroy Carter to take play into the New Zealand 22, presenting his team with both go-forward and quick ruck ball.
He stole metres around the side of a ruck too, alive to the space and the threadbare defence, taking out multiple defenders.
It was the breadth of his contribution that underlined how Baird has progressed on that all-round player – one capable of moments that nudges supporters closer to the edge of their seats, but also a teammate who is diligent in sharing out the communal graft that frees up space for others. The key is to maintain that trajectory, which would be beneficial for all concerned.
