Ireland supporters were afforded a glimpse of a rugby landscape post Johnny Sexton and with it an opportunity to decide whether it was barren or fertile.
The brain injury suffered by the 35-year-old Irish captain against Wales precluded him from playing and so the cellophane was removed from the succession plan.
The fact that head coach Andy Farrell got to scrutinise the credentials of two aspirants for the 10 jersey, Billy Burns and Ross Byrne – their respective game time virtually evenly split – in an attritional and difficult Test match environment will be more revelatory once the initial disappointment and frustration of losing 15-13 to France has begun to recede.
Burns was handed his second start in his fifth cap, coming a week after a personally traumatic late cameo in his fourth. The 26-year-old would not have needed to open the manhole cover on social media, and in some cases conventional outlets, to reveal an effluent feed full of bile in the wake of the disappointing endgame in Cardiff.
No one would have been more distraught than the 26-year-old Ulster pivot in the minutes and hours after the game. In that stupor he would hardly have noticed Will Connors’ supportive arm leaving the pitch or the consoling words of teammates, opponents and players like former All Black Liam Sopoaga, John Cooney and Simon Zebo.
It was 10 years since an Ireland rugby team had been without Sexton and Conor Murray and if Burns didn’t know the exact figure, he would have been well aware that many questioned the halfback pairing that pitted him alongside fellow rookie Jamison Gibson Park.
Burns’ taut, pinched features during the anthems were a physical manifestation of tension, a valve to release the pressure how he negotiated the first 10-minutes. He was neat; the kickoff was never going to be anything other than a thump towards the French 22. It seemed to be a strategy, one that France also utilised, albeit that there was greater urgency and co-ordination to the French chase.
Ireland’s outhalf was sure-footed in the opening 15 minutes, the ‘bombs’ perfectly calibrated in terms of height and distance to allow his teammates to compete aerially. Sharper eyes might have penalised the French for illegal contact in the drop zone. After last week’s setback in the final play, Burns was never going to ‘overegg’ the penalties to touch: 30 metres sufficed.
The home side were dominating possession, had burgled three French lineouts, but were a little deep and lateral in the back play, relying on the footwork of Garry Ringrose or Hugo Keenan to engineer a line-break. France didn’t offer any encouragement so Ireland took to the air more often than not. It yielded a couple of scoring opportunities
Burns faced his first test of character on 17 minutes but fluffed a penalty kick at goal. However three minutes later his rhythm and strike were better and he gave Ireland a deserved lead. Another pinpoint up-and-under, a clumsy trip by Bernard Le Roux on Keith Earls provided a preamble to the home side’s moment of creative clarity.
Mental strength
Burns took Robbie Henshaw’s pass on a loop and hit Hugo Keenan who found James Lowe but the winger was thwarted by a foot on the touchline following a review by the television match official, Tom Foley: millimetres and milliseconds in timing terms kind of sums up how the try didn’t come to pass.
Left stretched on the turf in the build-up to the first French try, Burns was stripped of possession as he tried to tidy up a series of mistakes in quick possession but fortunately the visitors failed to capitalise. Burns had played inside the margins in terms of risk-taking in the opening 40 minutes, sensible and solid. Within 90 seconds of the restart his game was over, sent for a HIA, from which he didn’t return.
Ross Byrne’s mental strength was evident at several stages in the second half, twice opting for shorter restarts that were perfectly weighted and allowed his team to regather possession; he wasn’t risk averse. The conversion of Ronan Kelleher’s try and the long-range penalty further evidence of his prowess with the boot.
Ireland’s game management in the third quarter was fitful, a combination of kicking away too much possession and being a little lateral in orientation in terms of the backline alignment. There wasn’t enough fluency or tempo, the home side reliant on individual flair and footwork – Ringrose and Earls provided the majority of those moments – to try and make inroads with the ball in hand.
France were largely comfortable, capable of slowing down Irish ball, and then fanning out to fill the pitch. The final throes of the contest summed up that lack of headway. Twice Ireland made it to just inside the French 10 metre line but three of four passes later were back inside their own half, the ball shovelled into the wider channels without a hint of a line break, any structure frayed at the seams due to physical wear and tear.
What Farrell and his coaching team learned from the game in terms of Sexton’s successors in the outhalf role has to be untangled from what they had hoped to do in attack.
They know the game plan and how well it was implemented. It was less clear to those who were left to judge it with the naked eye. There remains a disconnect between the various component parts of the game with the exception of set piece which was excellent.
Burns and Byrne kicked reasonably well but the shape in attack still relies hugely on individual flair and until there is greater coherence in general play, the issue of the outhalf pecking order is a subsidiary consideration, even when Sexton is there to guide the team.
