STATE OF THE NATION

And so ends the Six Nations.

Amidst gypsy gate scandals and citing concerns, all credit to England for winning the Grand Slam. A lot of people will claim it was an “easy Slam”, but the truth is there is no such thing – it is hard to win every game in a Six Nations championship. Eddie Jones has revitalised the national side: his decisions to move Chris Robshaw to openside and hand Dylan Hartley the captaincy have been masterstrokes that have changed England’s fortunes dramatically.

As for Ireland, I feel it was summed up best by George Hook: “When did coming third represent a success for Ireland?”

It is not a Six Nations for Ireland to remember, and one suspects they won’t. Besides the few bright spots that came from the tournament, there wasn’t much to cheer for Joe Schmidt and his coaching staff and it leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air surrounding this squad before they travel to South Africa in the summer.

So here is my summation of the Six Nations, split into the good, the bad and the ugly!

The good

- CJ Stander has announced himself on the international scene with a bang. He managed to transfer his excellent provincial form with Munster into a green shirt and has proven that he can hack it at the highest level. He adds yet another option in a crowded back row with both Peter O’Mahony and Chris Henry still to add back into the mix alongside Sean O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip.
- Amongst the poor performances some young players did get their chance to impress. Finlay Bealham, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier and Stuart McCloskey all got game time with Dillane’s appearance off the bench at Twickenham one of the more impressive cameos of the Six Nations.
- Jonny Sexton got back to form as the tournament went on. There were doubts over the fly-half going into February but the Leinster man certainly turned those on their head with some excellent performances, especially against Italy and Scotland.

The bad 

- In the end the stats will reflect that Ireland picked up just two wins, and they were at home to Italy and Scotland – not exactly the most impressive return. Admittedly winning at Twickenham was always going to be tricky but based on the fixtures Ireland had you would have expected four wins with the Twickenham match deciding the Grand Slam. In the end we were left needing to beat Scotland just to finish third.
- On the whole Ireland just did not look impressive. With a back line that constantly had to be reshuffled it’s understandable however things never looked fluid for Schmidt’s men and the tries didn’t flow like we were hoping they would. It was only whenever the two weaker sides in the competition came to Dublin that our backs showed any sign of a clinical edge. That has to be a concern going forward.
- Schmidt went with his tried and tested throughout the tournament without paying any attention to form. Despite having played just two games coming into the Six Nations Jared Payne was thrust straight into the centre with Robbie Henshaw despite Stuart McCloskey being the form centre in Ireland. Paddy Jackson didn’t even get a minute of game time despite being the form fly-half either.

The ugly 

- Italy’s form over the Six Nations should have afforded Schmidt some wiggle room to work with his selection. Dillane had impressed enough against England to deserve a start and Finlay Bealham could have been given a start too. Even with Ireland needing a win in that game, everyone could see that Ireland were so superior to their opponents that there was enough to win with those young guys starting.
- Ireland’s average squad age was the highest of the six countries, and after a World Cup that isn’t something to be that proud of. True, experience is a good thing to have in a squad, especially if you’re trying to win a tournament, but it’s time to be looking towards the 2019 World Cup and focusing on who will lead the Irish charge then. Right now it looks like that isn’t a priority.

WORK TO DO

Let’s not fool ourselves, it was just Italy.

Fans of Georgia would probably have been cringing at the sub-standard performance Italy put in and would be wondering to themselves what their country has to do to make it into the Six Nations or, at the very worst, be given a shot at replacing the Italians in Europe’s premier international competition. For one of the top six teams in northern hemisphere rugby, Italy provided about as much resistance as a wall made of paper.

Therefore, for one of the first times ever, a half century of points is probably something to be sniffed at. Alright, the overall performance by Ireland was probably a lot better than it has been in previous weeks (albeit, it was against Italy) but even after the full-time whistle there was a degree of dissatisfaction with the game. The demons of France and England had not been banished by that one turnaround in fortune.

In hindsight it is easy to say that this was a chance to continue with Stuart McCloskey or give Paddy Jackson a run ahead of Jonathan Sexton or even give Finlay Bealham a start at loosehead prop – but even without hindsight there should have been more young players involved. This was Schmidt’s last chance to perhaps push the boundary with his selection but instead he opted for conservatism to get the win – but who really saw Ireland losing to Italy, no matter what team they put out?

Put simply, Joe Schmidt really missed a trick here.

There is a line that he seems to have drawn that he must not cross, but it’s clear now he has to take risks. Ultan Dillane showed enough against England to justify a start that should have come againt Italy alongside Donnacha Ryan. The aforementioned McCloskey and Jackson should have featured in some capacity – both are the form players in their respective positions and yet they are still stuck in the international selection wilderness.

In my opinion it’s time to start looking ahead of the 2019 World Cup – start focusing on who will represent Ireland there and allow them to grow as a squad ahead of then. It may compromise our chances in the short term, but if we can give as many young players chances now and allow them to become familiar with each other as soon as possible then that will bode well for us in the long-term too.

Will it start against Scotland? Probably not. There’s a lot on the line against Vern Cotter’s men this weekend (world rankings, international pride, World Cup seedings, you know all that malarkey) so we’ll probably see something resembling Ireland’s “strongest” team again on Saturday (and no I do not regret the quotation marks over strongest).

It is concerning that it has got to this stage though that a victory over Scotland is a necessity to stay as one of the second seeds for the 2019 World Cup – Ireland have fallen a long way in just a year since we were double Six Nations champions. And based on the current age of the squad it’s not likely that Ireland will fare any better in Japan unless the switch in focus happens sometime soon.

But I don’t see that happening.

In such a results-driven business, the IRFU will be desperate for Ireland to finish with a better record than 1-for-5, especially in a Six Nations where we had three home games. Not that I blame them – it doesn’t reflect well on Irish rugby as a whole if their national team finish fifth in the Six Nations just one season after they successfully defended their crown, and even more so when you consider how much northern hemisphere rugby has regressed recently.

No, things are not perfect in Dublin right now. Maybe they won’t be for a while. But if a long-term goal is established (winning the 2019 Six Nations and finally reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup, anyone?) that Joe Schmidt can agree to work towards then at least we can see where the future of our national team lies.

And then maybe things won’t look too bad.

RE-FOCUSING

And things just get worse.

The Blues will trip up several teams this season so let’s not downplay them too much, but this is a side Ulster should have dispatched without too many difficulties, and yet somehow we once again managed to conspire a defeat out of the game. When three flailing white shirts slipped off Rey Lee-Lo as he broke through for Cardiff’s first try, you knew that was the game gone.

Summerhill’s late score was the one that ended the game as a contest and proved that this Ulster side just is not up to scratch right now. At the very least had we managed to hold them out and secure a losing bonus point from the affair it could have been a valuable point gained. Instead, we return to Ireland with nothing, probably a fair reflection on how we fell apart in the last ten minutes.

There need to be some long, hard discussions had this week.

The thing is our squad is talented enough and we know that. But for some reason we cannot transfer that talent onto the pitch, and that is why it is so frustrating that for the last four weeks we have played so poorly. The most concerning thing is we are only a few players off fielding our strongest pack possible and yet we are constantly bullied at the breakdown by opponents, while our backs (which are slightly more depleted) are struggling to make consistent yardage.

It is remarkable how much the view in Ulster has now changed: two weeks ago we were scraping victories, but we were rising to the top of the table and thought that the world laid at our feet. Now, off the back of two defeats, some are questioning whether we’ll even make it to the Champions’ Cup next season. With such a congested table it is a legitimate worry, but one that shouldn’t come to pass. We still have definite top four aspirations.

If we are to make the top four though, things have to improve and very quickly. It is a small mercy that we have Zebre at home this weekend before the three week break for the end of the Six Nations as, even in our current form, that should be a five-pointer that will recoup some of our confidence before we come back away to Glasgow on Good Friday.

That’s when things really get interesting.

For now though, it is unclear where Ulster go from here. I am still of the belief that we have the players at our disposal, it is simply a case that they are not performing to their potential. Whether that justifies wholesale changes I’m not sure, but certainly there needs to be something done to snap us out of this poor run and get us back onto a path that not only gets us winning games again but also sees us churning out strong performances to back them up.

Five points against Zebre is a necessity, that would be a very good start. Then we have three weeks before our game against Glasgow that allow us to get things sorted out for our tricky run-in. The ironic thing is amongst all the doom and gloom our top four dreams are still in our hands, we simply have to get back to the form we were in when we took down Toulouse before Christmas and then we will be in a good place.

Can we still do it? Of course we can. Will we do it? That’s up to the 23 players that take the pitch every week.