{"id":287197,"date":"2026-02-08T11:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/287197\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T11:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T11:24:08","slug":"finger-of-blame-pointed-at-south-african-in-ireland-loss-to-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/287197\/","title":{"rendered":"Finger of blame pointed at South African in Ireland loss to France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two days on from Ireland\u2019s defeat to France, the loss prompted a soul-searching discussion on Virgin Media Sports on Irish television.<\/p>\n

The panel of Joe Molloy, Shane Horgan<\/a>, Rob Kearney<\/a> and Ian Madigan<\/a> repeatedly returned to one central theme: whether the skill-set painstakingly built at Leinster<\/a> under Joe Schmidt and later refined by Stuart Lancaster has begun to erode under Jacques Nienaber, with the consequences now surfacing at Test level under Andy Farrell\u2019s Ireland.<\/p>\n

Opening the debate, anchor Molloy set the context by tracing Ireland\u2019s attacking identity downstream to its Leinster foundations.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo give a very quick potted history, Joe Schmidt arrives into Leinster and says we\u2019re going to become the best passing team in Europe. Practice over and over again. Those passes going to the right part of the body, at the right time, at the right pace,\u201d said Molloy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat buys everyone time. That speeds everything up. That\u2019s what made Ireland<\/a> what they could be under Farrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s Jacques Nienaber\u2019s fault. I can\u2019t stress that enough. But it is notable that the last two or three years there\u2019s been a change in emphasis in Leinster.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in year one of Nienaber, they came out and said, \u2018Look, we probably did spend a little more time on defence as opposed to honing attack.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to feel, and again it\u2019s Nienaber\u2019s prerogative and Leinster\u2019s prerogative, but it\u2019s hard not to feel a sloppiness that Schmidt would never have allowed has just been allowed to fester, when it comes to the basics that are essential for a team of Ireland\u2019s size.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shane Horgan suggested that the Nienaber effect might be tied to the differing experience of rugby in Ireland and his native South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a very fair point and it\u2019s maybe an unforeseen consequence for Nienaber. In somewhere like South Africa, everybody grows up with a ball in their hand and never stops passing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland players don\u2019t naturally have that. Joe Schmidt came in and changed everything. We thought we were good passers. He came in and said, \u2018You\u2019re not good enough,\u2019 and we weren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing that through Leinster and you\u2019re seeing it through Ireland. The consequences are more than just the pass and the catch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Ireland\u2019s alignment, one of the big issues was players weren\u2019t going to the right man or putting players through holes. Everyone\u2019s too flat because they\u2019re nervous about the pass and nervous about the pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

That contrast, he felt, was brutally exposed by France.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the difference between France<\/a> and Ireland. France are so comfortable with their pace. They\u2019re so fast. They\u2019re electric.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this level, even Ireland\u2019s fastest players don\u2019t look like the athletes that France have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob Kearney also highlighted the importance of Stuart Lancaster\u2019s role in Leinster\u2019s previous attacking clarity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guy we\u2019ve not mentioned is Stuart Lancaster. Joe came in and made us a really good passing team. Stuart came in and ensured our forwards could ball-play just as well as the backs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why you got the Leinster and Ireland shape with multiple options at the line at any given time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He warned that Ireland\u2019s reliance on provincial standards leaves little room for correction once players reach Test camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland are reliant on provincial coaches and players doing their basic ball skills all the way through the year. So when they come into camp, their catch-pass is already at a certain level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost too late for international coaches at that stage. It has to happen day-to-day at provincial level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kearney was blunt in his assessment of where Leinster now stand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think Leinster in particular, their attack and their handling have regressed since Stuart Lancaster has left.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discussion then turned to defensive alignment, with Madigan outlining the contrast between provincial and national systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefensively they\u2019re very different. Leinster\u2019s system, they\u2019re much more a press defence or rush defence, getting up in the face of the opposition, getting really high, and then if you do get broken you can rely on your scramble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLeinster are a counter-rucking team. They don\u2019t look to poach the ball as much. They\u2019re looking to counter-ruck, slow the opposition ball down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland are looking to poach the ball, but as you saw there in that instance, we\u2019ve got four players in some breakdowns, and then there\u2019s some instances where we\u2019re way too tight around the breakdown and other instances where we\u2019re way too wide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s because, in my view, players are caught between two different systems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two days on from Ireland\u2019s defeat to France, the loss prompted a soul-searching discussion on Virgin Media Sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-287197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287197","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=287197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}