{"id":292532,"date":"2026-02-11T14:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292532\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T14:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:48:07","slug":"andrew-trimble-sees-funny-side-of-irelands-jacques-nienaber-blame-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292532\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Trimble sees ‘funny’ side of Ireland’s Jacques Nienaber blame game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former wing Andrew Trimble has responded to the pundits who have attributed Ireland\u2019s recent struggles to ex-Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber.<\/p>\n

Andy Farrell\u2019s side opened the Six Nations Championship with a dreadful 36-14 defeat to France, which followed up disappointing losses to the All Blacks and South Africa in November.<\/p>\n

Several theories have already been thrown around as to why the national team has suffered a decline since the 2023 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n

Ex-Ireland duo blame Jacques Nienaber<\/p>\n

One of them is the arrival of Nienaber<\/a> at Leinster<\/a>, with Ireland<\/a> greats Rob Kearney and Shane Horgan among those to pin some of the blame on the double Rugby World Cup winner.<\/p>\n

The 53-year-old has looked to implement the defensive system which he used at the Springboks<\/a>, but some believe that it has harmed what made Leinster and Ireland so potent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so funny, Irish pundits and commentators are scrambling around trying to find someone to blame. If you\u2019re not from Ulster, Jacob Stockdale gets the blame. If you\u2019re from Munster, Sam Prendergast gets the blame,\u201d Trimble said on the Rivals<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people are blaming Jacques Nienaber for Ireland at the weekend, it\u2019s so funny. He\u2019s brought in something which I think is formidable. South Africa have shown that if it is implemented correctly, it\u2019s the best defence in the world \u2013 breakdown pressure with line speed and it just strangles the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ex-Ireland stars blame Jacques Nienaber for national team\u2019s \u2018regression\u2019 as Leinster stint has had \u2018unforeseen consequences\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Ireland were renowned for their attacking game leading up to the 2023 World Cup, but Nienaber has placed more emphasis on the defence since replacing Stuart Lancaster as Leinster\u2019s senior coach.<\/p>\n

There was certainly more alignment between the two teams when Lancaster was at the province and Trimble admitted that there appears to be some \u201cconfusion\u201d, but not necessarily to the extent some have suggested.<\/p>\n

Garry Ringrose \u2018got it wrong\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cLeinster haven\u2019t quite got there with it, but as a result there\u2019s maybe a little bit of confusion going back and forth between Irish camp and Leinster camp with so many Leinster guys training one way and then playing different in green,\u201d Trimble said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we saw the worst version of it at the weekend. For me, if you bring in line speed, shooters, if you create that chaos, it plants the seed, \u2018do I throw this pass?\u2019 There\u2019s the uncertainty around decision-making [for the attacker].<\/p>\n

\u201cGarry Ringrose is probably the one guy who shoots up, makes decisions, he\u2019s brave in defence, but he just got one or two reads wrong. He got beaten into that hole by the French attacker.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like they didn\u2019t do either well. They didn\u2019t do what they did in the past with that Irish defence, and they didn\u2019t do the Leinster defence. Maybe there\u2019s some confusion and it\u2019s hard to go back and forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Brian Moore: The factors ex-Ireland internationals have \u2018missed\u2019 in France disappointment after blaming Jacques Nienaber<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former wing Andrew Trimble has responded to the pundits who have attributed Ireland\u2019s recent struggles to ex-Springboks head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1100,61,3859,60,28576,10562,43,15551],"class_list":{"0":"post-292532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-home-page","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-internationals","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-jacques-nienaber","13":"tag-leinster","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-six-nations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292532","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=292532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}