{"id":561207,"date":"2026-07-21T18:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/561207\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T18:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:47:09","slug":"dan-biggar-believes-he-has-identified-cause-of-ireland-drop-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/561207\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Biggar believes he has identified cause of Ireland drop-off"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Welsh rugby player Dan Biggar believes he has identified a key problem that has caused Ireland\u2019s recent fall-off in quality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ireland won two out of three Nations Championship games to start their campaign, and while it is hardly a bad start, there have been some concerns about the team\u2019s recent performances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Handling errors and poor mistakes have been a cause of worry for the team, and with their most recent defeat to the <a href=\"https:\/\/extra.ie\/2026\/07\/21\/the-lineout\/farrell-ireland-all-blacks-score\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Blacks<\/a>, Ireland have now lost the last six games in which they have faced New Zealand, France, or South Africa.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784659628_612_3514526.jpg\" alt=\"Ireland\" class=\"wp-image-1793879\"  \/>Ireland players Jack Conan, left, Sam Prendergast, centre, and Jeremy Loughman. Pic: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking on The Rugby Pod, Welshman Dan Biggar identified a former \u2018super strength\u2019 that he feels is no longer present in the Ireland team and might explain their recent dip in form.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Ireland\u2019s super strength over the last ten years has been detail, detail, detail, structure, structure, structure. Connections and pods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Some of the handling errors they made were from not being in shape, the ball going to the third man and not expecting it, instead of the second guy in the pod. Jamison Gibson-Park wasn\u2019t hitting the right guy, no connections out the back.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Untitled-design-2026-07-21T163447.515.jpg\" alt=\"Dan Biggar playing against Ireland in 2023. Pic: Stu Forster\/Getty Images\" class=\"wp-image-1794670\"  \/>Dan Biggar playing against Ireland in 2023. Pic: Stu Forster\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He added: \u2018I thought on the weekend a few of their handling errors were caused by them not being as structured or clear in what they were doing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018The last six matches they\u2019ve played against South Africa, France, or New Zealand, they lost. That\u2019s the difference. That\u2019s not necessarily a criticism of Ireland. They\u2019re playing against the very best, and they\u2019re a tiny bit below that.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan Biggar\u2019s analysis seems to be a fair one, with Ireland\u2019s lack of accuracy in attack evident, compared to that of previous teams, in which attacking was a huge positive of their game.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Thank you for all the support in Australia and New Zealand. \ud83d\ude4c<\/p>\n<p>See you back home at Aviva Stadium this November. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AcBgMQJlAz\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/AcBgMQJlAz<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IrishRugby\/status\/2079130789258604807?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">July 20, 2026<\/a><br \/>\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Welsh rugby player Dan Biggar believes he has identified a key problem that has caused Ireland\u2019s recent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-561207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561207","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=561207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}