ANALYSIS: Why the Six Nations is no longer a boring kick-fest, and what we learned from the epic in Ireland

It still seems strange to say it, so let’s repeat it one more time: the number one and number two ranked teams in the world were playing against each other at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday. Ireland and France. It is a unique privilege for the Six Nations, and it has never occurred before.

The premier tournament in the Northern Hemisphere has always thrived on its tribal rivalries, regardless of the quality of play. Supporters will save their money for that one big weekend in Edinburgh, Paris or London, to watch their nation-of-origin go toe-to-toe with a neighbour from across the Severn, or beyond Hadrian’s Wall, or on the other side of the English Channel.

They will probably enjoy the craic afterwards even more. Thoughts of the grey Mondays of an ordinary working life seem an awfully long way away when you are still roaming the streets of the Pigalle or Trastevere in the wee hours of Sunday morning, in the eternal sunshine of a spotless, wine-cleansed mind.

If South Africa eventually joins the Six Nations, as it inevitably will with its four ex-Super Rugby provinces now plying their trade in European competition, it will consolidate the tournament’s status as the most lucrative annual international competition in the world.

But the key to the professional success of the Six Nations has been an improvement of the quality of play. No longer do you have to simply endure a match in Dublin in order to hit the sweet spot after it finishes, you can actually enjoy the game itself. It may even become the main point of going in the first place.

Try-scoring has never seemed so desirable as it is in the 2023 iteration: 36 tries in the first six games alone. On Saturday, the match in Dublin turned history on its head: there were only five scrums and 20 lineouts set, compared to the 230 total rucks built by both sides. So much for walking from one set-piece to the next.

A ratio of nine breakdowns to every set-piece is almost twice the usual 5-to-1 quotient. The ball was in play at the Aviva Stadium for a colossal 46 minutes – compare that to an average of 37.5 minutes in last year’s tournament and 31.6 minutes in the 2022 Rugby Championship.

It resulted in one of the greatest halves of professional rugby football ever witnessed in the first period. Australian ex-Scotland coach Matt Williams and ex-Force, Leinster and Ireland full-back Rob Kearney sparred in the Virgin Media debate afterwards.

Williams led off: “It was a phenomenal game. That first 40 minutes was as good as you’ll see. Both sides just went at it, went at it, went at it… Almost no scrums. To give referee [Wayne] Barnes his due, he kept his whistle in his pocket. It was a great game of rugby, and the best team won.”

Kearney responded: “Ireland were superb. Although Matt [Williams] says it wasn’t one-sided, there were parts of the game I would be inclined to disagree. Ireland scored four tries to one, they were held up over the try-line on four occasions [in fact, five], you could argue that Ireland should have put that game beyond question an awful lot earlier.”

Ireland kept the ball for 142 rucks at a 97% retention rate and did an outstanding job on the most threatening group of on-ballers at the breakdown in the entire championship. They forced France to make 242 tackles, pushing the boundaries to the point where Les Bleus’ huge tight forwards simply ran out of gas.

The biggest single difference in the new, exciting version of the Six Nations is that the better sides have learned how to counter-attack off kicks and turnovers. They no longer depend on set-piece to construct their scores. When two teams take the same attitude at the same time, you have a truly great game of rugby on your hands.

Ireland enjoyed five big kick or turnover returns in the first period, and between them the teams had scored four tries in the first 26 minutes of the match:

Ireland opted for a lot of middle kick returns in order to dial down the effectiveness of a Shaun Edwards-coached rush, by splitting the defence to both sides of a ruck in centre-field.

If you think you have seen that move before, it is because you probably have. Remember this from the 2022 Rugby Championship?

The scrum-half (Conor Murray for Ireland, Nic White for the Wallabies) is still running the wrap-around line to pull defenders away from the breakdown, and a prop (Canberra-born Finlay Bealham for Ireland, Brumbies captain James Slipper for Australia) is still playing the pivot role at first receiver.

It was a move regularly wheeled out by Joe Schmidt in his stint as Leinster coach against French club opponents more than ten years ago, and it was designed to exploit the sluggish responses of those massive front five titans at the side of the ruck.

The detail within Ireland’s version of the move is impressive:

Two Ireland cleanout players have moved to the head of the ruck to split the French defence down the middle and prevent the backside Guard (prop Cyrille Baille) from making a tackle. Two support players are running into gaps on either side of a strike-runner (number 15 Hugo Keenan) who is hidden from view behind the referee until the last possible moment, and Keenan himself is running directly into the space between the two French backfield defenders. Those little details maximize the probability of a successful outcome for the attacking side.

Eight minutes later, France got their own back:

“Never give a vampire the taste of blood” as the telly commentator proclaimed. It doesn’t matter if you are under pressure within your own 22, on the end of a ‘Barnes Wallis’ pass from your fullback, if you are Damian Penaud. One exchange of passes with flanker Anthony Jelonch, and a handful of raking strides later you will be celebrating a score at the other end of the field. Out at midnight to feast, back in the coffin by dawn.

As the first period unwound however, it was the men in green who profited most from the stream of kick and turnover return ball on offer:

Ireland win the ball back from the very next kick-off after Penaud’s try, and James Ryan makes an outstanding one-armed scissor takedown on Paul Willemse to prevent a turnover at the first ruck. After that it is all about attacking shape, with threats at the line holding Penaud within the right 15m line and a superb 20 metre bullet from Garry Ringrose setting up the flying finish by James Lowe in the left corner.

Ireland were as unafraid as France to shift the ball from deep in their own end when the opportunity presented itself:

Those are legs with a combined age of 70 years old on the wide outside. Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony are happy to realign, run and support when the counter is ‘on’.

On occasion, it demanded some extra-terrestrial defensive efforts by France to keep Ireland out of their in-goal area:

Mack Hansen pulls in the intercept to give Keenan some more running room on the right side-line, and looks odds-on to score when he picks up the ball close to the goal-line. All the ex-Brumby has to do is fall forward, and ground the ball with the whitewash directly underneath him.

It takes an astonishingly powerful hold-up tackle by Antoine Dupont to defy gravity and pull him away from the line and towards touch. It was typical of the heroic exchanges in the game, but not enough to stop Ireland snapping France’s 15-game winning run unceremoniously in the capital city of the Emerald Isle.

Summary

By the time the World Cup arrives in September, New Zealand and South Africa will be arguing the toss about who is the best team on the planet with fanatical vigour. And who knows, the Wallabies might even chip in on that debate themselves.

But for now, the two best sides in the world were on show at Aviva Stadium in Dublin last Saturday. Ireland and France served up a sumptuous feast of rugby between them, especially in the first period.

Make no mistake, this was rugby at the cutting edge, with ten minutes more ball-in-play time than the 2022 Six Nations average, nine rucks to every set-piece, and over 2,000 metres gained and 13 line-breaks on the day.

Compare the first half in Dublin with the fare on offer in the same period at Murrayfield later in the afternoon, and you will see the difference. Add the two halves of football in Dublin’s fair city to Scotland’s second half performance in Edinburgh, and it is a testament to just how far the game in the north has come.

Nowadays, you do not have to make the annual pilgrimage to one of the capital cities in the UK, Ireland, France or Italy for the craic alone. You are almost guaranteed to witness a decent game of footy too. With the Springboks likely to join the Six Nations sooner rather than later, things will only get better – just as they have with South African involvement in European club competition.

The only danger is that Eddie Jones’ Wallabies, and Warren Gatland’s Wales may get left behind in the rush to the gold standard. Jones’ England did not improve after their peak in 2019 – quite the opposite – and the true extent of the upgrades Gatland needs to make in both his own coaching, and Welsh playing standards at professional level, are beginning to become apparent.

In terms of rugby innovation, it is no longer about keeping up with the Joneses and the Gatlands of this world, the noisy neighbours in Wales and Australia have to find ways to keep pace with developments elsewhere. That is the real challenge today, in rugby’s brave new world.