Take a bow Ireland – the lineout has been running at a 93.5 percent success rate
James Ryan receives the ball from Ireland’s greatly improved lineout(Image: ©INPHO/Ben Brady)
The Ireland lineout, despite the changes in personnel, has worked a treat through the first three games of the 2026 Six Nations. There was a 16/17 return in France, an 100 percent 13 win against Italy and 11/13 at Twickenham.Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher have been on point with their throwing while James Ryan, Joe McCarthy, Tadhg Beirne and Caelan Doris have been getting to the arc.A significant improvement on 2025 where the set-piece was a constant source of criticism, struggling to get past 89 percent against Tier One opposition.Take a bow Ireland, so. The lineout has been running at a 93.5 percent success rate, a solid return.“I think they’ve gone pretty well,” says James Ryan who was on the bench for the France game but started against Italy and England. “I wouldn’t say we’ve reinvented the wheel or anything like that.”We spoke about it coming in after November that, probably, the set-piece is one of the areas that we wanted to push on with in this campaign.”It didn’t help in November in that last South African game, I went (sent!) off and you’d different guys filling in in different positions and a lot of moving parts and that never helps things.”We’ve gone into these games with a nice, clear plan and then just executed it better which has been good, our ball-winning percentage and so on has been much improved.”That’s been a positive for us as a pack of forwards because our line-up obviously gives us so much.Ryan keeps his place for Wales at the Aviva – as Joe McCarthy drops down to the bench – a reflection of a pick-up in form in Ryan’s overall game as noted glowingly earlier in the week by Paul O’Connell.“Yeah, I feel good, feel fit at the moment,” said Ryan. “Again I haven’t reinvented the wheel or anything but there’s so much competition now at this level, both provincially and at national level, that you can’t stand still.”You’ve got to find ways all the time to improve, to add to your game and that’s just what I’ve been trying to do.
Paul O’Connell (Image: ©INPHO/Ben Brady)
“Paulie often talks about cornering the market and playing to your strengths, getting better at what makes you a good player.”I’d like to think defensively has always been a strength of my game, I like getting into the defensive contest, into as many battles as I can.”A big part of defence in here is having the mindset to get off the line and to get into the tag contest so that’s always been at the forefront of my mind.”So I’ve just tried to keep improving that, I suppose I’ve learned so much off Simon in here and obviously Jacques since he’s come in to Leinster. I’ve just been enjoying my rugby and I’m feeling good.”Overarchingly, it seems Andy Farrell’s post-match anger following the defeat to France has had an enormous bearing on this campaign sinceNever before had an Ireland coach had so obviously accused his own players of not having ‘intent’ and the message was taken to heart.It’s interesting that a number of players have admitted that ‘intent’ has become a 2026 buzz-word. “It’s doing what you say you’re going to do and it’s leading by actions, it’s all mindset really.”We spoke that week in terms of all the best Irish teams always have that intent piece and just play on the edge.”There’s probably a bit of an individual responsibility there to get yourself to that level and to be ready to go and I thought we did it really well against England which was great.”The big thing for us now is making sure that we don’t just drop off, we’re able to be ruthless enough to have that again this week and the following week.”It is a cliché but I think that’s what it comes down to. I think the same goes for all of us.”We’ve had a great plan going into the last three games and probably the first game over in Paris we had a nice plan – we talked a lot about it and we didn’t deliver it.”These last two rounds, we’ve delivered what we said we were going to do. It’s the same for this week. The England game was great, had a lot of aspects that were pleasing.”But the message coming into Friday night and Wales is it’s just we can’t be complacent. We’ve got to get better again so we’re excited.
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