IRELAND HEAD COACH Adam Griggs and hooker Clíodhna Moloney have hailed the impact of Sevens star Stacey Flood in the 15s squad over the past few weeks.
The Dubliner came off the bench in Ireland’s heavy 41-point Six Nations defeat against France last weekend, the replacement out-half a certain bright spark as the clock ran down.
Flood’s performance was one of few positives on a sobering day in Donnybrook, her impressive involvement certainly promising going forward.
It came as the 24-year-old playmaker’s second Ireland 15s cap in a week, having been sprung from the bench in the 45-o win over Wales in Cardiff.
On both occasions, Flood showed ample game intelligence and management, and displayed an impressive zip in her passing — following the family tradition, her older sister, Kim, a dual Ireland rugby international, who is now playing Women’s National League [WNL] football with Wexford Youths, both having also played inter-county football in the past.
Flood is one of several Ireland Sevens stars — Eve Higgins, Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe, and Emily Lane the others — Griggs predicted could provide ‘X-factor’ in this campaign, and he’s been more than pleased with her showing so far.
“Stacey is obviously a proven performer on the Sevens series,” he told The42 in a media briefing this afternoon. “What we like about her is the way that she can see the game.
“She’s got a really good rugby IQ, she’s been playing it for a long time at a high level. The last couple of performances from her have been top-notch, coming off the bench and adding impact, which we’ve asked her to do.
“What we like about her is she plays heads up rugby and she’s starting to learn more and more that in the 15s game, there is still a framework that we can work off that allows for her to express herself and show some of that talent she has.”
Moloney echoed her coach’s words on the Railway Union star, while teaming up with Guinness for the Never Settle campaign.
“Stacey’s got buckets of talent, she really does,” the Wasps forward said. “She’s a very confident player but she can back it up. She can back it up in every facet of the game.
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“You’ve seen her defence, you’ve seen her turnovers, you’ve seen her kick, you’ve seen her miss pass; she really can do it all. It’s about getting her more exposure to the 15s game, I guess, more and more exposure. She’s learned her trade at Sevens but I think she really will be an excellent 15s player.
“It’s more so about hoping that we retain her and hoping that we keep her in the 15s team. If she is able to do both, that would be fantastic. But we definitely have a big talent in Stacey and we would hope that she would keep performing to her ability in that way.”
Ireland face Italy in this weekend’s third-place play-off, hoping to finish the campaign on a high.
Heineken® Champions Cup star and Rugby Players Ireland ambassador Jack Conan.
IT HAS BEEN impossible to miss Jack Conan’s thunderous form in recent times.
The number eight shone in Ireland’s final game of the Six Nations after being handed a start against England, building on the series of excellent performances he has been delivering for Leinster.
Since, he has been a standout in his province’s wins over Munster and Exeter.
Ahead of next weekend’s Heineken Champions Cup semi-final clash with La Rochelle, Conan talked us through some of the moments that have seen him make a particular impact over the last few months.
The Keith Earls try
A stunning set-piece play from Ireland tore England apart for a first-phase try that featured a wonderful Keith Earls finish after Conan’s skillful touch to redirect Rob Herring’s long lineout throw back inside to the Munster wing.
“All week, we had said to ourselves that this was going to be the first play if we were in that certain area of the pitch,” explains Conan.
“You’re hoping that if you haven’t got your hands on the ball in the first five or 10 minutes of the game, you’ll definitely get a chance with this play because I’m integral to the move.
“But 20 minutes pass and I have barely touched the ball. I’m thinking, ‘I’d want to get the show on the road here, I haven’t done anything.’
“We finally got our opportunity. We kick the ball into touch and Johnny [Sexton] makes the call. I’m thinking to myself, ‘If I drop this here, 20 minutes in and I’ve done nothing, I’m going to get slated for it!’
“We had only done it twice or three times during the week and it hadn’t really come off to the point we wanted to. So I knew it was a big moment.
“We had prepped it for no England tailgunner to be there. Josh [van der Flier, red below] was coming into the lineout for a dummy lift and we hoped he [Tom Curry, yellow below] would bite down on that.
“But I go out and leave the lineout and I’m looking at Tom Curry thinking, ‘Right, he shouldn’t be there, that’s not what we planned for. But c’est la vie, let’s go for it and see what happens.’
“I thought I was going to be absolutely smoked because I’d be at full stretch and he would have just melted me in the ribs. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case and I was able to get up barely above him and flick it down to Earlsie.
“It was pretty instinctive at that time because that’s not what we thought was going to happen.
“I thought I was going to get loads of time on the ball to make a decision – either play Earlsie back on the inside or play Bundee short, who was coming at pace outside to go over the top of [George] Ford.
“Curry jumps with me and I’m thinking there’s no way I could get the ball and play it to Bundee, so I could see Earlsie in the corner of my eye. My instinct was to try drop it down to him and hope he could carry it and we would go into our phases.
“But my God, what a change-up he had onto the ball to go straight through and what an incredible finish to go around Jonny May, who is no slouch, and over in the corner – I don’t think anyone thought it was going to go as well as it did.
“I felt in that moment that there was relief, a lot of pressure off me. It couldn’t have gone any better.
“I nailed my bit of it so I could relax and get into the game a little more, not be worried about messing up the move.”
Holding width
Conan continued to impress for Ireland against England, soon featuring three times in their remarkable 23-phase try, which the number eight finished.
Conan’s role within Ireland’s 1-3-2-2 attack shape was to hold width out in the 15-metre channel, where his comfort on the ball is obvious. It’s a position he also occupies very often with Leinster.
“I always love having a bit of space and time on the ball because you have that bit more time to make decisions,” says Conan.
“When you’re playing for Ireland or Leinster, when you’re in at six – which I was for the lineouts that day – you’re predominantly holding a bit of width, with one back rower on the other edge and the number eight more in the middle of the pitch.
“It’s not exactly how we do it in Leinster but it’s not massively different. Some days you can stand out there and the ball is never going to come to you. But we were trying to play with a little more width, we knew England were going to be a little bit more narrow, especially with the 13-2 set-up they have with two in the backfield.
“We felt there would be space on the edge if we were able to hold our feet, stay connected and quite tight to each other because obviously if you throw those long skip passes, they’re going to shoot out of the line because they’re such a high-pressing defensive side.
“It was great to get the ball in my hands with that little bit of space, you get to feed the likes of Jacob [Stockdale] or Hugo [Keenan]. You’re not just running into brick walls the whole time.”
Conan’s finish came on the left-hand side, where he ran a decoy line in front of Sexton before heading to the breakdown and finishing with a clever pick and go.
“Looking back on it, that is a terrible decoy line,” says Conan. “I have not sat down anyone there, I need to be hammering onto that ball as if I was going to get it. At that stage, I was fairly blowing and you’re waiting for your second wind to kick in.
“Once the ball is gone past me, I’m thinking I need to get to the ruck as quickly as I can because I know there are a lot of backs around me who will want to stay out and hold width and stuff.
“I run that awful short line off nine and then try to get back into the ruck.
“That ball through the middle of the ruck is not something we do a lot but I just noticed there was a space there and it was opportunistic at the time. Lucky enough, I have long enough arms to stretch out and get over the line.”
“I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had scored a try before that, I was on a long drought, probably the longest in my career.”
Being direct
While Conan enjoys getting on the ball in wider channels, he is also required to carry directly into heavy traffic close to the ruck at times, as below against Exeter.
“It’s not always the prettiest carries, but it’s about making those inroads and winning the gainline, even if it’s a foot or half a metre,” he explains. “That’s going to make the defensive line work that little bit harder around the corner.
“Hopefully we’re playing at such a high pace, our two barrels or bullets are in nice and early [to clear out the breakdown] so the ball is on a plate for the scrum-half and we can take advantage of that folding defensive system that isn’t set properly because we’re playing at such a high tempo.
“A lot of the time on that kind of carry, you’re thinking to yourself that you want to go hard, be straight, not drifting off the ball. Your width from the nine is important, you don’t want to get too tight because that’s an easy hit and makes for less ‘hold or fold’ decisions for the defensive side.
“And something that Josh van der Flier has done incredibly well the last few weeks is accelerating onto the ball when you get it, being really direct and trying to isolate a defender.
“You don’t want to be tackled by two guys at once so you want to isolate someone, you against them with you moving at full tilt and getting over the gainline.
“So it’s about squaring up, accelerating onto the ball and if you can, get a soft shoulder. But sometimes that’s easier said than done.”
Set-piece roles
Having featured centrally in Ireland’s try off the lineout against England, Conan is also often at the heart of Leinster’s set-piece plays, including the one below against Exeter which ended with a turnover penalty concession.
As Luke McGrath and Josh van der Flier attempt to lure Exeter’s eyes out beyond the 15-metre line, Conan comes back down into the shortside from Devin Toner’s pop.
“The move worked,” says Conan. “Right before we did it, Jack Maunder – who was playing nine for Exeter – is shouting, ‘Watch the front peel, watch the front peel.’
“We were going down the front and I’m thinking, ‘Ah, they’re well teed up for this, your man is shouting it out,’ but we went for it anyway and peeled down the front.
“I was hoping he’d see me coming around and push off to go for Rónan [Kelleher] and I’d go through and have an easier set-up for the next phase. But he gets a shoulder on me, I play it to Ronan, he makes a good carry up the field but we were just slow getting to that breakdown.
“We know how good Luke Cowan-Dickie is at getting to the ball and we miss the first cleanout on it. I got back off the ground, I’m a bit late, but the damage is done at that stage.
“If we had got the ball away there, we would have been in a really good spot. After a linebreak, teams tend to get very narrow and honeypot back towards the ball where there’s normally a lot of danger. We were hoping to play with width and we might have had them a few phases later if we had held onto the ball.
“That bit of missed detail and accuracy is something that kept them in it longer than we should have.”
We also saw Conan’s passing skills used on second phase of a Leinster lineout play in this game.
“It’s always great to get your hands on the ball in those set plays where you have options.
“I just love when the coaches say I’m going to be in the centre of a move, you love when they’re making moves around your position.”
Base of the scrum
Conan has been increasingly active off the base of the Leinster scrum this season, using his dynamic carrying but also passing at times.
“There has been a big change in the work at the base of the scrum,” he says. “A lot of that is down to Robin McBryde, who has come in and said, ‘We’re underutilising this, if you do it in a certain way, you have a free run at the opposition 10 and it’s an easy few metres.’
“It’s something I love doing because it gets the ball in your hands, you know you’ll have lots of time and running full pace at someone.
“We used to just do it predominantly for exits but now we do it anywhere on the pitch, which is great.
“If you look at someone like Conor Murray, he goes really hard at the opposition number eight and nine at the base of the scrum, so we practise a lot.
“Myself, Caelan [Doris], and the scrum-halves, get together after training, go through the plays, get someone to put on a bit of pressure and train it as if it’s a match-scenario. It’s a cheap turnover if the opposition scrum-half can get into you there.
“It’s definitely something that we’ve spent a lot more time on recently and I feel it’s a great string to my bow and for Caelan and the other guys playing at number eight.”
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FORMER ALL BLACK and two-time World Cup winner Victor Vito has hailed Ronan O’Gara’s impact on La Rochelle ahead of their Champions Cup semi-final against Leinster tomorrow.
Vito, who joined the Top 14 club in 2016, has been impressed with the Irishman’s influence in La Rochelle’s rise since he came on board as head coach in 2019.
Working alongside director of rugby Jono Gibbes, O’Gara has improved La Rochelle’s defence and attack, helping to make them a more consistent force. They currently sit second in the Top 14 and are looking forward to meeting Leinster in Europe for the first time tomorrow.
With Gibbes departing for Clermont this summer, O’Gara will be the main man at La Rochelle from next season having signed a new three-year deal with the club.
“Ronan is just an ultimate competitor,” said Vito of O’Gara’s influence. “I’m sure he was like that when he played with the Irish team but he just wants to win so bad.
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“I think it is really infectious but it doesn’t come off too daunting because he is actually a nice guy to talk to. He is very worried about the guys and their families, how they are all going, he is quite approachable.
“He has really got an attention to detail around certain things as well. He has really just asked the question ‘Why not us?’ a lot ever since he got here.
“A lot of the boys believe we are a great team, we believe we can do great things but some of the details he has brought in along with Jono as well, we are now looking at a semi-final with Leinster – one of the teams I have been looking at from afar and wondering what was their secret and now all of sudden we are having a game with them.
“Obviously the proof is in the pudding, we still have to play them and still try to beat them but it’s just an honour to be receiving them at the same time.”
O’Gara’s coaching journey has been an intriguing one, with his first job coming as an assistant coach in Racing 92 before a move to New Zealand to join the Crusaders.
Former All Blacks Victor Vito. Source: Tommy Dickson/INPHO
Vito can see the impact that spell working under Scott Robertson has had on O’Gara.
“Some of the clips he shows us and the detail he brought about how we attack with our forwards and the sort of lines we are trying to connect with our runners and that kind of thing, a lot of that is Crusaders influenced.
“But then culturally as well, just being able to connect with the guys and have a laugh, that’s maybe something that he has probably learned in New Zealand moreso.
“We are a lot more jovial maybe than his generation was when he was playing so he definitely loosened up a bit going to New Zealand and then coming to us because they love to have a laugh over here. He has tightened the screws as well which is why we have been able to find ourselves in a semi-final.”
Fascinatingly, Vito was in contact with Leinster senior coach Stuart Lancaster last year during the first lockdown as he looked to improve his own leadership skills.
Vito has been enthused by the development La Rochelle have gone through since his arrival in 2016.
“Funnily enough, during the lockdown I was actually speaking to Stuart Lancaster because I was trying to find ways to lead this team and just trying to pick his brain because he has been through the England set-up and now he is at Leinster,” said Vito.
“We were talking about things and there are obviously different cultural norms, but from where it was when I got here and guys were smoking around the corner of the changing room. Now at least they’re finding somewhere else to do it!
O’Gara with La Rochelle scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow. Source: Luttiau Nicolas/INPHO
“Just guys doing half a weights session and then walking off the field early if they were tired to now where it is such a professional set-up, we have amazing facilities as well and just the fact that we have started winning games has given great belief.
“We have started digging into our identity a little bit and got tighter as a team and as a group just by having those little moments: not just waiting for the club to set up a team function or whatever, it is actually bone-deep, having barbecues with the families.
“Covid has brought the importance of all that forward as well so, yeah, there is something special happening here at La Rochelle. It has taken a while but at the same time, it has happened pretty quickly.
“I feel it has taken a while probably because I am getting on but compared to when I first arrived I came here with guns blazing and different moves and different this and that, I just had to learn to do it the French way and that’s fine too because it’s a balance.
“It’s not just the New Zealand way or the English or Irish way – the French way isn’t bad either, as we have seen with some of the rugby that boys have played. So we’ve come a long way and something special is cooking. Hopefully, we can keep that going on Sunday.”
– This article was updated at 10.40am to correct ‘La Rochelle’ to ‘Leinster’ in the first paragraph.
A BIG WIN for Munster – a statement as much as a result as they make it two from two in the Rainbow Cup.
Reacting to the win, Munster full-back Mike Haley said: “We are delighted with the win. It’s another big derby for us. We really wanted to get back to Thomond and basically make a statement for all the fans that can’t be here. That one was for the fans at home.
“Whenever we’re at Thomond we want to make a statement that we’re not going to roll over and make anything easy so we were into everything and that’s the way we like it.”
Haley crosses for his try. Source: Bryan Keane/INPHO
Captain, Peter O’Mahony, added: “Rugby’s a physical game, that’s where it starts and stops and if you’re off in that department particularly against teams like Ulster you’re not going to compete so we know there’s a standard there that we have to hit to beat teams of that quality and I thought we were up there tonight.
“We scored six tries tonight which was very pleasing, some of it off the back of our defence which we haven’t got in a while, which is also very pleasing, you know, 38 points is a nice haul.”
For Ulster this was a bad night. They were beaten by 28 points, they had Will Addison red carded.
Their coach, Dan McFarland, said: “Obviously we are disappointed, we didn’t play very well. We lacked intensity in certain parts of the game and when you combine it with the real intensity that Munster showed, it meant we were on the back foot for chunks of the game and it was very difficult to come back from that. We started the second half well, then they got the intercept and that was that.”
At half time he made five changes.
“We needed to change things up. There was nothing individual in that; in the first half the intensity and speed of the work in our defence was not as good as we would expect normally – so we needed to make a few changes. There was not anything personal involved in that (decision); we just needed to change things up and did it a wee bit earlier than normally.
“We have done a lot of travelling this year – it is tiring, fatiguing – we will be up to 20 away games this season and that has been tough. The lads prepared well we had a tough beginning to the week, reviewing the Leicester game.
“You also have to say that Munster came at us; they didn’t have a semi-final in Europe last weekend and as a consequence all their chips were in this basket, they had a good time to think about this game.”
On the subject of Addison’s red card, McFarland said: “I haven’t had a chance to look at all the angles on that and the only question was whether your man’s height dropped significantly late and as a consequence it should have been a yellow.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that it was a card of some sort. I’ll have to look at it more.”
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