Simon Easterby maintained a composed figure in the aftermath of his first game as Ireland head coach, as he had presumably done at half-time when trailing 10-5, and as his team did in weathering an English storm to stick to their principles and nail an important lift-off to his interim reign.
As is often the case, the team which played the more ambitious, attacking rugby sometimes doesn’t earn their rewards until the second half. Following Ireland’s 27-22 win, Easterby himself felt that the decisive 22-point salvo in the first 32 minutes after the interval was in part the product of their performance in the opening period. Nor had he expected England to roll over and have their bellies tickled in a Six Nations encounter.
“I think in the first half, it’s first round of the Six Nations, England here in Dublin, it’s always going to be a bit of an arm-wrestle. It’s nothing we didn’t expect.
“We had to find a way. I thought we played well in patches in the first half, we didn’t quite get our accuracy right, and that’s probably why the scoreline was in their favour. We felt at half-time if we did a few things better that we would get the rewards, and we did that.”
Simon Easterby takes positives but mindful of lapses on first day as Ireland interim boss
England coach Steve Borthwick praises Ireland and pinpoints third quarter turnaround
Ireland v England as it happened: Simon Easterby’s side record bonus point victory in Six Nations opener
Once Ireland cut out the sloppy mistakes, England could not live with them
Specifically, Easterby spoke of Ireland sharpening their accuracy during the interval.
“We had lots of opportunities in their 22, but didn’t quite make the most of them. They defended well and made it tough for us. I think on reflection we’ll be happy with the way our set-piece went, and we set up some lovely opportunities through that. Up until the last couple of minutes, defence was okay. We know we need to be better next weekend.”
Ireland were already showing signs of turning the screw when Easterby began turning to a powerful and experienced Irish bench, which possessed 509 caps compared to 91 among England’s comparatively callow replacements. The home bench was undoubtedly much more impactful, especially Dan Sheehan, Jack Conan and Jack Crowley, but again Easterby sought to put this into perspective.
“I think the game breaks up as the game goes on, the second half in particular. I thought the guys that started laid a strong foundation, and it wasn’t easy going, it was tough at times. It was physical, it was what you’d expect from an Ireland-England game.
“The guys that came off the bench benefited from the work that had been done in the first 50-60 minutes. To be fair to the guys who came off the bench, they were brilliant, they really impacted the game, but I do think the guys who started got through a lot of work.
“It was tough going at times, it was attritional, there were a lot of challenges in the air and on the ground and we dealt with most of those, but we benefited with some real impetus off the bench.”
As with Andy Farrell throughout last November, the interim head coach was asked about the performances of his outhalves.
“I thought Sam was excellent at times, he really created a couple of nice opportunities. We felt like in the autumn that Jack came on an impacted the Australia game and he did the same again and finished the game off well.”
One of the few blemishes on the evening’s work was the sight of Finlay Bealham hobbling when he was replaced with an injury to his lower right leg, all the more concerning given the likely absence of Tadhg Furling for next Sunday’s round two game against Scotland in Murrayfield.
“We’re still unsure what it was or what it is that happened to him. He’s moving around okay in the changing room.”
Another blemish was the concession of two late tries which afforded England a losing bonus point. Asked if he was disappointed, Easterby pointedly said “yes”.
Very disappointed?
“Yeah, it gives them a bonus point in a competition where BPs are important, but listen, the result stands and it didn’t change the result and at the beginning of the day if you’d offered us that we’d have taken it. There’s lots we can get better at.”
Still Ireland travel to Edinburgh with a bonus-point win, in the same position as Scotland themselves and France.
“I think what it does do is it sets us up for what will be a hell of a challenge in Murrayfield. It’s never easy going up there, they’re coming off the back of a win as well. But we need to make sure we get better at the things we know we can and it will be important that we don’t deviate too far away from what’s worked for us this week.
“But it’s an important place to go and get a result, it’s somewhere where we’ve had a little bit of success in the last few years, but we know it’s going to be incredibly tough.”
Caelan Doris said his message at half-time was: “That we need to get back to doing things our way. There was a bit of a feeling towards the end of the first half that we were going to break them a little bit, that when we were getting into their 22 and score zone, things were gonna happen for us if we got a little quicker ball and continued to do things our way, so that was the message.”
The captain described it as a satisfying win, adding: “Momentum is obviously huge in this competition. You can’t win it in the first round but you can lose it essentially, or dampen your chances quite a bit, so that middle 30 of the second half, very pleased.”
