{"id":129868,"date":"2025-11-09T04:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T04:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/129868\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T04:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T04:44:11","slug":"lineout-struggles-cause-concern-for-ireland-against-japan-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/129868\/","title":{"rendered":"Lineout struggles cause concern for Ireland against Japan \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland<\/a> head coach Andy Farrell<\/a> and the Irish team will look at the glass half full aspect of their win over Japan after the tries finally started to roll in late in the second half.<\/p>\n

Three tries from Gus McCarthy, Paddy McCarthy and Tommy O\u2019Brien were scored in the last 12 minutes against a wilting Japanese team with the scoreboard swinging from a modest 21-10 after 48 minutes to a more satisfactory 41-10 final score.<\/p>\n

But come next week\u2019s postmortem Farrell will also look at a first half where Ireland were behind Japan in several metrics including their 77 carries to Ireland\u2019s 47, their 59 per cent territory and their 100 per cent lineout success to Ireland\u2019s 57 per cent.<\/p>\n

The Irish lineout improved in the second half with Gus McCarthy\u2019s try in the 68th minute coming from a throw from him and finally touching down from the Irish maul driving forward.<\/p>\n

By the time the whistle blew for the end, the Irish lineout had an 82 per cent success rate to Japan\u2019s 94 per cent and in that improvement, the Irish coach will be pleased.<\/p>\n

But the fact that the lineout currently appears unreliable, especially after last week where it was a weakness against New Zealand, will cause some furrowed brows.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s R\u00f3nan Kelleher and Tadhg Beirne celebrate after the match. Photograph: Billy Stickland\/Inpho <\/p>\n

A different hooker in R\u00f3nan Kelleher started the match and it was the look on Kelleher\u2019s face in the first half as balls went astray that told a story as three lineouts were lost from seven throws.<\/p>\n

In the first of the lineouts, the ball went right over the entire body of players. Another was penalised for a dummy throw and another one was nicked by Japan at the front of the line on it\u2019s way to Tadhg Beirne.<\/p>\n

Two other lineouts were secured on the second touch having not secured the ball with the first contact.<\/p>\n

Last week Ireland won 11 out of 16 lineouts giving the team a 69 per cent success rate to New Zealand\u2019s 75 per cent.<\/p>\n

So, in both games of this Quilter Nations Series, Ireland have come out second in the set piece against the All Blacks and Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I\u2019m not worried about it, of course I\u2019m bothered, but I\u2019m not worried about it,\u201d said Farrell after the match. \u201cThe people that are in charge, coaching-wise, are top draw, top class.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lads who are involved in leading it are exactly the same as well. From what I saw, there was good calling. Some people got their calls wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s individual stuff. One overthrow. But they didn\u2019t panic. They didn\u2019t panic and found a way in the second half and that\u2019s why it was certainly pleasing putting Ryan [Baird] into the second row there.<\/p>\n

\u201cA bit of change, obviously, for Caelan [Doris]. They found a way, and it was pretty good in the second half. Obviously, Gus [McCarthy] was 100 per cent with his lineout, so that\u2019s pretty pleasing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doubtlessly the Irish lineout did improve with McCarthy scoring a try off one and Beirne stealing a Japanese throw near the end of the game.<\/p>\n

How to sustain the level for the entire match especially against a first-tier team such as Australia next week, who will not tire as much as the Japanese did in the final quarter, is an essential fix for the Irish team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland head coach Andy Farrell and the Irish team will look at the glass half full aspect of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[53359,61,60,1449,43],"class_list":["post-129868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-autumn-nations-series","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}