Old dogs and new tricks
WHEN THE BRITISH AND IRISH LIONS RETURNED FROM THEIR 1980 tour of South Africa, the general consensus of opinion about their 3-1 defeat in the Tests was that the Lions forwards had won the series, but their backs had kicked it away.
The seventies have seen an almost total reversal of roles between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. British rugby, once the richest in exciting back play, has now become the most organized in forward play. Now it is the South African and All Black three quarters who are showing the British players how to run. Magill talked to five Irish former internationals, and asked them to assess both the current state of British and Irish rugby and the prospects for Ireland in the forthcoming Home International Championship.
Tony Ensor
TONY ENSOR: UCD, Wanderers and Ireland, 22 times capped full back, 1973-1978. Tony Ensor took over in the Irish team directly from Tom Kiernan. He was the first modern Irish full back, a good tackler and a good reader of the game, a complete full back.
I THINK ONE OF THE PROBLEMS of back play at the moment is that there is far too much coaching at school. For example, I went to Gonzaga, a small school and a minority school when it came to rugby, and in my years at UCD there were always two or three Gonzaga players on the Colours team. One of the reasons for this is that people were encouraged to play rugby at Gonzaga, there was no emphasis on winning Cup matches, in fact we did not win many cup matches. But at least people remained enthusiastic about the game and continued to enjoy it, so that they were still keen to play on leaving school.
The great worry is that players like Kevin Flynn, Mike Gibson, Dave Hewitt, all of whom came on to the national team almost directly from school, are not coming through. We are even at the stage where some of those players who are capable of beating a man do not try anymore. There is undoubtedly too much stereotyped back play - many times now wingers will cut inside off their outside foot, rather than try to go round their man because that way they can link up with the support. Of course, there is an element of bravery about trying to beat your man, particularly at international level. If you try it in a tight situation and are caught, you do not look so clever. People do not want to make mistakes and get dropped, so they opt for a safety first policy. On top of that people are coached into taking the safety first option.
Take a player like Andy Irvine - he is a wonderful player, yet he does some ludicrous things which his brilliance allows him to get away with. People criticize him for this, yet the game would be much the worst without his type of player. It would be no bad thing if everyone were a bit more spontaneous a la Irvine, and I am not just talking about full backs, or out halves, I am also referring to wing forwards, even rucks and mauls could be less controlled.
But then of course, every team wants to win. Ireland beat Australia in '79 by playing a tight, controlled forward game aimed at minimising the effectiveness of the Australian back row by pushing them back all the time. Ireland won, all Irish rugby supporters were delighted, but it was not very entertaining stuff, both from the spectators' viewpoint and from that of the three quarters.
With regard to full back play itself, I would say that since the abolition of the direct kick to touch, the basics of full back play have been added to. People say that a full back must first of all catch, kick and tackle well, those are of course important basics. But if a full back cannot lend his strength to attack, cannot take the pressure off his own three quarters by doing something positive with the ball, then I say that he is not a complete full back.
As for positioning, I think that if a full back has to be told where to stand there is something wrong. Positioning has to be intuitive. Of course, knowing the opposition out half is a help. If I were playing against Barry McGann I would immediately be ready for a certain type of precise kick, whereas if I were playing against Mick Quinn I would be ready for a big belt.
Basically if the scrum or line out is against you, then you must stay in a position where you can catch the high kick, the diagonal kick or the chip over the centre. It is also the open side winger's responsibility to cover this last sort of ball and for this reason he should be lying a little deeper behind his centres.
One aspect of a full back's play which can go wrong is his timing. I did not realise that this can be as important in rugby as it obviously is in cricket or golf. When I had this problem, Ronnie Dawson used to take me out training, just firing soccer balls at me, one after another until the reflexes and the timing came right.
In the case of the full back position on the Irish team, I think Hugo MacNiell is a very talented player. Not only is MacNiell a good rugby player, but he is also an intelligent student who gets firsts in his studies, as well as being a fine soccer player. It may sound chauvinistic, but athleticism, the ability to do well in other sports and intelligence help a full back. Mentally it is a taxing position - you have to watch the game a lot and then when you are under pressure you are very exposed. I would have thought that Hugo MacNiell will be able to take the pressure. . . Kevin O'Brien had an unlucky match at Twickenham last year, somehow he seems unable to produce his Lancashire form for Ireland or Connacht . . . Johnny Murphy of Greystones looks like a good player, but he has not had much experience at anything more than senior club level, yet.
Bill MacBride
BILL MACBRIDE: Ballymena, Ireland and British Lions 1962, 1966, 1968, 1971 and 1974, 63 times capped second row, 1962-1975. "Willie John" hardly needs any introduction. One of the best locks to play rugby, his finest hour was surely his achievement of leading the '74 Lions through an unbeaten tour of South Africa.
I THINK THAT AT THE MOMENT, both among the forwards and the backs, Ireland are a lot better off than they have been in the past. You can suggest to me that there is a shortage of good second rows, and looking round the country that would appear to be so. But even when I was playing there was difficulty finding someone for the position before Mick Molloy and then Moss Keane came to play alongside me. It is a problem all right for the selectors. . . but then Moss is still there and he is a player who has developed tremendously in the last few' seasons, and he is a player who, when things are not going well, will not hang the head.
As long as I can remember, when I was playing with Mulcahy, with Molloy and with Moss Keane, the line out was always our problem. Since I have retired I feel that we have had more line out options than ever before, with people like Michael Gibson and Donal Spring. Obviously you base your line out play around people like these who can jump. You ;:;an also compensate for the absence of a good middle line jumper by various ploys, such as short line outs, different throws etc. One thing which I have not seen for some time is a good front of the line out player. In ways, there are more options for you if you throw the ball to the front of the line out - you pull in the opposition back row and make more room for your backs to play.
I believe in the fifteen man game, but you can do nothing without the Coaching has done a lot for our forward play, although at the same time it has inhibited much of our back play ball, so everything must start with the forwards.
You must have your pack well organized. Coaching has done a lot for our forward play, although at the same time it has inhibited much of our back play. We must learn to let the backs play their own game, but at the same time we must not relax on the forward play. For instance, it is a good while since I have seen a good scrummaging side. There was a time, in the early seventies, when the Irish side was dominant in the scrummaging. I know that the New Zealanders preach that you have only to be adequate in the serum, but I still feel that it is an important aspect of the game that should be got right. It was a tremendous part of the success of the '71 and '74 Lions tour.
Another phase of our game which has gone wrong is rue king. In the last few seasons we have seen the arrival of the pile up which I think is highly dangerous. When the All Blacks played Wales recently, I think they gave them an object lesson in rucking, in staying on their feet at the ruck and trying to work the ball back with the feet. Nowadays, everyone seems to want to lie down on the ground and paddle around! I don't think the ruck was dangerous and I would like to see it brought back, but as our laws are at the moment, I don't think referees will allow it. The problem with the pile up is that it stops the game because somebody is lying on the ball, but with the ruck, well you get away from the ball.
But with a view to the international season, there is reason for optimism, most of the same pack will probably be there - it is an advantage of the numerical weakness of Irish rugby's playing strength that there is continuity in the side. I was at the Welsh game last March, and I felt that that display was the best I have ever seen from an Irish team. We took the game to Wales, we were committed in everything we did, we broke them down and most importantly we had concentration for 80 minutes. When I was playing there always, or often, seemed to be a lapse in the middle of the match when we gave away the soft try. . . There was a time when there seemed to be a lack of confidence in an Irish team, a sort of inferiority complex which had to do with the fact that the domestic rugby scene of Wales, for example, helps their players to be more confident in an international. The Welsh player is playing at a higher standard of football, Saturday by Saturday, and he is playing that game in front of huge crowds many of whom know the game well. In time the player who has this experience every Saturday is not scared to take risks. But the way that Ireland B played against England B indicates that there is talent and confidence in Irish rugby again.
Mick Hipwell
MICK HIPWELL: Terenure College, Ireland and British Lions 1971, 12 times capped number eight. A fine footballer. Mick Hipwell's experience as one of the 1971 Lions makes him uniquely qualified to speak of forward play.
WHEN YOU ARE ASSESSING A number eight, you are looking for three basic things - height for the line out jumping, strength for power in scrummaging and speed off the mark as well as speed in the loose. On top of all that, I would expect him to be a good ball player, with good hands. It is rare that you actually get a player with all of these talents combined - Ken Goodall, Ian Kirkpatrick and Mervyn Davies were exceptions who were complete number eights.
As for the Irish number eight, it will depend on how the three players, Donal Spring, Michael Gibson and Willie Duggan, are playing at time of selection. You can make a case for all three of them. Willie Duggan is obviously stronger than the other two because of his age and he is a hard physical player in the loose, who can play when in the line out. But Donal Spring is probably the best line out man of the three because he is the only one who will regularly make a clean two handed catch. I would have thought that Spring is the most controlled and efficient line out player and that he would be guaranteed to win you six to eight very effective balls in every match.
Mike Gibson did well in his internationals and he too has got height, but he tends to spray it around with a one handed tap down, which is obviously less useful to his scrum half. However, I have not seen much of Mike this year and to not know how he has come back after his knee injury.
I suppose the selectors will again have to consider Spring for second row. It is unfortunate for Spring, but the fact that he played in the second row for Trinity at the beginning of his senior rugby career means that he will always be thought of as a possible second row. Even now he is playing second row for his club, Lansdowne. It could be said in favour of this move. that it is easier to go from second row to number eight than vice versa. If you start playing in the back row, you will always have a tendency to be in a position to do other things in the loose, rather than get involved in the tight.
In the rest of the back row, we are went off with players like Fergus Slattery and John O'Driscoll, who is only just beginning to play to the maximum of his ability. If that back row has a weakness, it is that there is no ball player, no great distributor in attack. It may sound like heresy, but this is perhaps the one weakness in Slattery's game - he is not a creator in the attacking role, in the style of say John Taylor. He remains one of the greatest flankers in rugby, and there is nothing wrong with the rest of his game, but I feel that with his tremendous speed that were he a better than player, he would be setting up and ~coring tries at an incredible rate. Of course his defensive covering and tackling are second to none.
...One worry I have about the game is that it is becoming over-legislated. Take the kicking direct to touch rule - before that was introduced we had some fine rugby teams such as the '55 Lions or the '52 Springboks who were able to play no matter what the rules. Even the backfoot offside law does not of itself make for a better game - okay you push the backs back and keep the wing forwards further away, but the two still meet somewhere.
I think in forward play that both scrummaging and line out laws have become too complex. Take the line out - I think the good jumper needs no legislation to protect him, and that the rules only cover the weaker jumpers. As it is at the moment, there is hardly a line out which the referee should not penalise. If you want space and no messing at the line out, then reduce the thing to two men, one from each side and you will have a pure jump. I do not think legislation helps in these matters - two good teams will sort themselves out. In New Zealand in '71, there was a lot of good line out play from the Lions, but we were well organized and did not need the referee to look after us, and the game kept flowing,
Scrummaging likewise has become a joke. The ball should be let in and let out quickly, as simple as that. Nowadays a scrum may have to get up and reset and go down again two or three times and the whole flow of the game is stopped. I do not think for example that anyone abides by the foot up law, which states that the hooker has to wait for the ball to pass the inside leg of the prop before he strikes for it. But nobody waits that long. I feel that you should get the scrum straight and get on with it.
I think also that boring in, twisting and collapsing of the scrum nearly always are used by the side which is in bother. Yet they are not always the side who are penalised. As in the lines out, the laws allow for too much messing. If you are a good scrummaging unit, you get down and shove the opposition backwards. Apart from wheeling, which I think a good scrum should be able to handle, I think these other developments favour the weaker side.
. . . . . The biggest problem facing rugby today is the time pressure on players. Air travel has changed things so much that you can play an awful lot of games now, from September through to May. In my last year, I played 66 first class games, and then of course there is the added time pressure of squad sessions. At the beginning of my career, none of that existed. I do not regret this, but I feel that in the long term there is no way that players can meet the demands being made of them.
Cricket and tennis accepted the need for an open game and perhaps the rugby authorities should lead the way on this issue. Money does pass hands in rugby, there are liberal expenses for players, depending on the country or the strength of the club. With the amount of time involved, some way will have to be found to legitimize what is happening. A top player at the moment just could not be classed as an amateur. This is not to knock the game, but simply to suggest an internal remedy before the problem forces people to drop out because of the time commitments. It is simple - either you enforce the rules or you legitimize a situation. You do not pretend it is not happening. . . . . I am talking about some sort of part time pay for players which would be taken from gate money, and as not many Irish club teams draw crowds I do not think this would apply to Irish clubs. But where there is a gate it could apply. This does happen anyway in parts of Wales, France and South Africa. The word amateur needs to be redefined.
Mick English
MICK ENGLISH: Lansdowne, Limerick Bohemians and Ireland, 16 times capped out half, 1958-1964. Mick
"the Kick" was, as the nickname suggests something of a kicking out half and is thus well qualified to speak of our current out halves, Ollie Campbell and Tony Ward, both of whom are handy with the foot.
I DO NOT THINK THAT PLAYERS today practice individual skills. Per haps skills come naturally, but you can improve these things. I used to practise sidestepping past a line of flagpoles. . . likewise I could never kick with my left foot until an accident to my right ankle made me use the left foot all the time. By the time my right ankle had recovered, I was a better kicker with my left foot than with my right. . .
I am not convinced that the present off-side law for backs is an entirely good idea. When I was playing, as long as you stayed behind the line of the ball in the serum, you were not offside, whereas now you have to stay behind the feet of your own back row. You would have thought that the fact that the opposition were that much closer to you would have closed up the game a lot, but it didn't. A player's skill had to flourish in adversity, anyone with a sidestep used it, it was the only way to survive.
Today's players have said to me that because they have that extra ten yards, they have too long with the ball in the hand. I find this hard to believe but then I have not played under the modern rules. When we got the ball as outhalves, there was just about time to catch the ball and pass it, and because people like Hayden Morgan pressurized you, you developed skills to beat them. In some ways you can beat a man better in a small space than you can running at him from twenty yards. The laws were made to give backs more room, and because they have more room, they tend to be more of a target for the opposition defence. Also, because people have more room to get up pace, the fashion for the centre to try to go through on the so called crash ball has come about.
. . . . . With regard to Ollie Campbell and Tony Ward, I think that there is sound chance that neither of them will play in the centre for Ireland. Last year's centres, Paul McNaughton and David Irwin, will be hard to shift from the team. Both are good strong players, David Irwin in particular seems to be improving all the time. I think they are both more realistic choices as centres.
The out-half is a specialist, he is in the best position to see what is happening on the whole field, to sum up the possibilities and to act on his vision. He, along with the scrum-half, should be willing and able to dictate the play, to call the shots. In this sense, although Ward is a fine player who would make the English or Scottish teams, I think perhaps Campbell is a better tactical kicker, a more complete footballer and a bit faster than Tony.
If I would make any criticism of Campbell, it is that perhaps he is too courageous for his own good. He goes into situations which he should leave to his back row. People often say that Ward overdoes the sidestep, the jink and loses contact with his own backrow and/or his centres, but then there must be an element of them losing with him.
One player that both Ward and Campbell will have to watch for is Paul Deane, who for his ability to beat people, to run and to quicken must be one of the best I have seen for a long time. . . and I am thinking back to players like Cliff Morgan, against whom I played.
. . . . . I think that this year, Ireland under Tom Kiernan will play with more freedom than under Noel Murphy. Noel was very good with the forwards, and Ireland under him were very good in the set pieces. Kiernan will encourage people to do their own thing, he is unlikely to stifle anyone's natural inclination to run. 1 think also that Kiernan wants people to enjoy their rugby, even though of course he wants them to win.
Noel Murphy may have been a harder driver, but Tom Kiernan will get results from players on the basis of respect. Kiernan was, of course, a very good captain of Munster, Ireland and the Lions.
Alan Duggan
ALAN DUGGAN: Lansdowne and Ire. land, 25 times capped winger between 1964 and 1972, not only holds the joint record for most caps won as a winger (Tom Grace is the other holder) but also holds the record for scoring the most tries for Ireland in international (11). Duggan usually played on the right wing for Ireland and had the reputation of being a winger who could create a score from even half a chance.
IRISH RUGBY AT THE MOMENT does not seem to be encouraging the development of wing play. I feel that we played with more flair, that it is not accurate to place the declining standards of back play on the fact that defences are more organized now. In defence the Irish team on which I played was very organized. The fact that Tom Kiernan was the full back in that side obviously had a lot to do with that organization - for instance as a winger you always knew where Tom would be, and we were able to look after our own sectors of defence.
I got a lot of tries, (11), for Ireland and not all of them were on my own flank. I was always willing to go looking for work and for the ball. Sometimes I feel that today's players are too inhibited by coaching, that they are too obsessed with not making a mistake rather than trying something imaginative. How many wingers today will not join in the line when the ball is going out to the other wing simply because they are afraid that they might leave a gap in defence, which could be exposed.
Coaching has a lot to answer for, and I am not talking just about club rugby. It is starting at schools now. Of course players must learn the basics at school but it is sometimes overdone. By the time players come to an Under 19 side, like ours at Lansdowne, the last thing they need is to be shouted at, they have had enough of that. We leave them alone and let them get on with it themselves. . . . . and hope that that way they will start to enjoy themselves again. I think also that coaching tends to inhibit a player, prevents him from doing something instinctive or improvised. With a back, you have simply got to let him think his way through a game. Programmed back play is not on. A winger should of course have great pace. But if he is a good footballer, and Frank Quinn is an example, then he can cover for lack of pace with anticipation and good positioning. In defence, if you always move inside the man coming at you, he is forced to go outside you and he steps into a line where you know where he will be, you leave him only one way to go and you can take him.
When I first came on the team, the winger was there to score the tries. Of course things have changed, the attacking full back coming into the line has made a second full back of the blind side winger. A good centre can help a winger immensely, I was lucky in that the men who played centre inside me, Barry Bresnihan, Jerry Walsh and Mike Gibson, were all good deliverers of a pass. Then with Barry McGann prodding and kicking at out half I received a very good service. It is one of the reasons why I scored tries.
I was lucky enough to score the only points, with a try, when Ireland last beat Wales at Cardiff Arms Park.
That was a good example of a player not doing what he was expected to do. Jerry Walsh received the ball during a phase of broken play, there was no way he could run, and no way he could pass, so he just chipped one through to the line for me to chase and I won the race against Dai Bebb for the touch down. Walsh was not known as a kicker and the Welsh were caught taken by surprise. Mick Hipwell often delivered the same sort of kick for me to run after. . . perhaps I am wrong but I get the feeling that you do not see as much of that sort of shrewd tactical kicking from the most recent of Irish teams. The grubber, the reverse kick to the box when you are running to the open side, the kick that is meant to land behind the second centre and between him and the winger, all these sorts of kick, I think I don't see often enough.
I had a few specialized routines which I did with the ball. I would practise dribbling the ball around the pitch. I would also practise picking up the ball at speed, usually I would roll it along the ground and then pick it up on the burst. In that way you learn to get your feet positioning and your bending, every aspect of the pick up correct. If a pick up had to be made in a match situation then I got myself into the right position automatically. At that time as well, wingers still took the throw-ins at the lines out and I used to practise throwing a ball at a post to improve my accuracy.
I am not at all sure that it is a good idea for the hooker to take all the throw ins. People say that the system now where the winger drops back to act as a defender in the box. is advantageous. But I always felt that I could get back to cover anything in the box. Also I could cover the front of the line out accurately and sometimes I could get round and harry the opposing serum half. Not many hookers today are fast enough to do this. The final disadvantage of the hooker throwing in is that he may sometimes be less accurate towards the end of a game, when he is exhausted.
I think that Tom Kiernan will have a huge influence on this team. As a captain he had a tremendous influence on the sides in which he played. Tom Kiernan was always very shrewd in his analysis of the opposition. I played under both Tom and Noel Murphy as captains, and although both were great men to psyche you up, there was a subtle difference between the two. If Murphy told you to put your hand in the fire, you might ask why. If Kiernan asked you to put your hand in the fire, you would.