{"id":684474,"date":"2026-07-10T16:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/684474\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T16:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T16:02:16","slug":"brian-odriscoll-jacques-nienabers-defence-ingrained-in-ireland-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/684474\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian O’Driscoll: Jacques Nienaber’s defence ‘ingrained’ in Ireland stars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland legend Brian O\u2019Driscoll still believes that Jacques Nienaber\u2019s system at Leinster is causing issues for their star players when transitioning to Test rugby.<\/p>\n

Andy Farrell\u2019s men edged to a 33-31 victory over the Wallabies last weekend, but they struggled in defence, conceding 24 points in the first half alone.<\/p>\n

It could have been even worse had Hugo Keenan not produced a magnificent tackle on Australia\u2019s<\/a> Joseph Suaalii which stopped what seemed a guaranteed try.<\/p>\n

That moment changed the momentum and enabled Ireland<\/a> to get back into the contest and eke out a win, but it was not a convincing performance, especially without the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge try-saving tackle from Hugo, [after] another bad defensive error,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll<\/a> told Off The Ball.<\/p>\n

Nienaber\u2019s blitz defence<\/p>\n

The former captain has previously stated that Nienaber\u2019s extreme style of blitz defence could be causing problems for the Leinster players<\/a> when heading to Ireland and he reiterated that point, although they weren\u2019t the only ones to make mistakes last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely an issue with transferring one defensive system to another. It\u2019s ingrained in these Leinster players, and actually it\u2019s not just them,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw [Ulster\u2019s] Stuart McCloskey at one stage shooting out of the line and the big thing about the shooters coming out of the line is you have to stop the ball or force the players back inside, but Australia were getting the ball out the back, they were doing those little loop plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have big variety hitting the short runner after that and sometimes going out the back, so Ireland looked incredibly exposed and that Hugo Keenan tackle on Suaalii was significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it goes out to 19 points, maybe 21 points, all of a sudden we don\u2019t have an opportunity to score just before half-time, and it\u2019s a very different game going in at half-time with momentum on our side.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will be very disappointed with an awful lot of those errors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nations Championship: Predictions, team news, kick-off times, how to watch and referee appointments for Round Two<\/a><\/p>\n

Having got that first game out of the way, O\u2019Driscoll expects to see an improvement from the Irishmen when they face Japan this weekend, even though they have made a few changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have sympathy for these players because it is something which has been drilled and drilled over the course of the last few years, particularly at Leinster with Jacques Nienaber\u2019s defence, but the big thing about the shooting process is they\u2019re expecting other people to follow them in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they have line speed off the line, they think whoever is outside them is going to shut it off as well and that actually hasn\u2019t been happening because it\u2019s a different system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will imagine it will be significantly better [against Japan], there must be five or six examples at least around players shooting and not stopping the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue is your hustle from the inside and your jam from your outside then gets disconcerted of not really knowing what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the outside defender is playing soft and someone shoots, you leave this massive dogleg, and then likewise the hustle on the inside doesn\u2019t know when to double under or whether to plug the inside and stay where the player has been forced back in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s all this uncertainty around the defensive system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recurring theme for Ireland<\/p>\n

O\u2019Driscoll stated that they have had the same issue at the start of both the recent Six Nations and the 2025 November series, but they have managed to correct those problems in the following matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat happened a little bit in the France game at the start of the Six Nations, it happened over in Chicago [against the All Blacks] where they just weren\u2019t very connected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think another week will help give them an understanding around you cannot do that, you\u2019re hurting the team if you shoot that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, if Ireland continue to get it wrong, O\u2019Driscoll has warned that the All Blacks and Eddie Jones\u2019 Japan have the ability to cut Farrell\u2019s side apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s lots to learn from that game but most of all defensively, they\u2019re not going to be afforded that luxury of making those errors against Japan but particularly against the All Blacks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom November, looking at some of Japan\u2019s attack, it\u2019s outstanding \u2013 really sharp, good passers, very explosive runners, they play wide, wide \u2013 so if they do that and Ireland don\u2019t stop the ball, Japan will run free.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ireland team: Andy Farrell rotates heavily for Japan as uncapped quartet set to debut<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland legend Brian O\u2019Driscoll still believes that Jacques Nienaber\u2019s system at Leinster is causing issues for their star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[428,12429,348,3482,2274,386,620,50,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-684474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-australia","tag-brian-o","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-ireland","tag-japan","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684474","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=684474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}