{"id":425640,"date":"2026-02-14T16:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/425640\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T16:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T16:44:13","slug":"what-has-left-brian-odriscoll-scratching-his-head-about-this-ireland-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/425640\/","title":{"rendered":"What has left Brian O’Driscoll scratching his head about this Ireland team"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ireland<\/a> legend Brian O\u2019Driscoll<\/a> is a worried man.<\/p>\n

Ahead of a fixture that Ireland has won 16 times in a row, that may seem strange. But the centre turned TV pundit is one of many to voice their concern at the way Ireland, Six Nations champions only two years ago, are playing.<\/p>\n

Being interviewed on stage at a live recording of the Off The Ball YouTube show in Belfast this week, the 141-cap World Rugby Hall of Famer admitted he wasn\u2019t surprised by last week\u2019s limp showing against France<\/a> in Paris, which ended in a 36-14 defeat.<\/p>\n

Ireland hardly fired a shot in the first half and trailed 22-0 at the break, before the bench came on and made an impact to give the final scoreline a bit more respectability.<\/p>\n

Andy Farrell has reacted by making six changes to his starting XV, not due to rotation, as has been the case in the past against the Championship\u2019s historically weakest side, but in a bid to get a much better performance against an Azzurri team on the up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s at the point now where he\u2019s got to rattle a few cages,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn truth, there\u2019s been a few guys that last week certainly didn\u2019t really deliver for him on an important stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of coaches would go back and say, \u2018right, I\u2019ll give you one more go\u2019. But actually, in truth, that performance had been coming. We were all worried about it and it came to pass, and something has to change to kind of stop the rot so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland have never lost at home to Italy<\/a> in the Six Nations, their last defeat in Dublin coming at the old Lansdowne Road in 1997, prior to the Azzurri\u2019s involvement in the Championship.<\/p>\n

But their 18-15 win over Scotland\u2019s \u2018Golden Generation\u2019 and Ireland\u2019s no-show against Les Bleus gives Saturday\u2019s game a different feel to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive game,\u201d said O\u2019Driscoll. \u201cIf you think about it, they\u2019re buoyed by their form over the last year. (Gonzalo) Quesada (the Italy head coach) has come in and done a brilliant job, and there\u2019s positive sounds from within the camp.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Michele) Lamaro talking after the match last week was saying we have ambition in our heads, but he wouldn\u2019t tell you what it was. So obviously they\u2019re not talking, let\u2019s not get the wooden spoon, they are thinking can we win three games in the competition?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first time they are coming to Dublin where they are a really, really big threat to us; they are very organised; they have got good x-factor; defensively they are very solid; we struggled against them in Italy last year, only won by a score, so this has been coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been going in one direction and, in truth, we have been sliding a bit in the other direction, so something has to be done, a little bit more drastically than Andy Farrell would be used to, and the changes are as a result of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really like (Cormac) Izuchukwu coming in, and Robert Balucoune, albeit Tommy O\u2019Brien<\/a> can probably feel a bit hard done by; the game didn\u2019t go for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe provides something that not many other players have \u2013 that wicked speed and total commitment \u2013 but with Baloucoune you also get that.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers like that, and I think Arundell, I think Feyi-Waboso and Louis Bielle-Biarrey<\/a>, when they get the ball in their hands there\u2019s an electricity to what\u2019s going to come next. The stadium can feel it, the opposition can feel it, and the more of those players you get in your team, the better chance you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as changes of personnel, O\u2019Driscoll hankers after a return to the style of play that took Ireland to number one in the World Rugby Rankings.<\/p>\n

While Ireland are by no means alone in kicking the leather off the ball, O\u2019Driscoll feels that by following the trend of kicking-to-compete, they are doing themselves a disservice.<\/p>\n

The ball was put into the Paris sky 78 times in the opening match of the Championship, with Ireland responsible for exactly half of those kicks.<\/p>\n

With their best leaper and catcher of the ball, Mack Hansen<\/a>, absent through injury, it was never going to be an area where Ireland dominanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like we have over subscribed to the kick-contest game,\u201d O\u2019Drioscoll lamented.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the first launch play \u2026 ball down off the lineout, into midfield, box kick from Gibson-Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, you catch that one and you maybe get a bit of momentum, a bit of territory, but if you don\u2019t, it gives confidence to the opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has happened to backing ourselves as the skilful team that we\u2019ve been for the best part of a decade?<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe Schmidt teams were always the best passing teams, and I genuinely believe that, and this is significant, since Leinster, who make up so much of the Lion\u2019s share of the squad, stopped doing the multi-phase game, it has contributed massively to what has happened in the national camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince they have come away from that, the passing quality is not as good, players are checking their runs, there\u2019s not as much cohesion.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, I\u2019d love them to go back to practising skills a little bit more and backing themselves and not going back to the kick contest when it hasn\u2019t worked for two or three phases<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of years ago, when Ireland were at their best, when it broke down they got back to their formation and shape within a phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s like we can\u2019t do that so let\u2019s kick it in the air and see if we can get a 50\/50 contestable kick back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think we are never going to beat a team by just competing in the air. We have got to think our way around beating the best sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look back and reflect on our best rugby and our inspiring rugby, it wasn\u2019t about our kicking game, it was about us backing ourselves to get soft shoulders, get offloads away, to take a few more risks. I think we are becoming increasingly risk adverse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland legend Brian O\u2019Driscoll is a worried man. Ahead of a fixture that Ireland has won 16 times…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-425640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}