Six Nations 2024
They never replicated the heights of their opening win in Marseille but there’s no doubting how special this Ireland team is. Stuart Barnes assesses why they again came up trumps in an absorbing championship
A HARSH CALL would be to say Ireland’s Six Nations tournament ended not so much with a bang as a whimper. There’s nothing hollow about these men. But there’s also no disguising that the back-to-back Six Nations champions tailed off as the competition reached its final two rounds of action. In the game against Scotland, the Irish – with their Grand Slam hopes gone up in the Twickenham smoke after a 23-22 loss to England – didn’t think about all the necessary points permutations which only those who have never been inside a changing room will understand.
The Six Nations title wasn’t something to be left to risk in the hands of 23 Englishmen in Lyon in the last game of the final match day. It was to be won in Dublin. A title off the back of a bonus-point loss would have been too bitter a pill for Andy Farrell’s team to swallow. No one would have been around the Aviva after 11pm to see the non-existent trophy lift. A consecutive loss as well? That really would be the stuff of TS Eliot’s Hollow Men.
l DUBLIN DELIGHT
It was in Ireland’s hands and they got enough of a grip on it against Scotland not to let go. Who believed they could lose? The only thing surprising about the eventual Irish triumph was the fact it wasn’t a second Grand Slam for them. But maybe I’m guilty of hindsight here. A successive title is a hell of an achievement but aspirations and expectations had all changed with that opening-night victory in Marseilles. France’s heaviest home loss in over 100 years of this competition, through its various manifestations, convinced most of the rugby world that nothing would stop them gaining glorious consolation for their heart-rending quarter-final defeat at the sharp end of the Rugby World Cup. There seemed no New Zealand to stop them here. England were lying in wait though, masking their threat beforehand with a sequence of mediocre efforts until they produced the best English display since they beat the All Blacks in the 2019 World Cup semi-final. And so Ireland were reduced to the mortality we almost dismissed off the back of their stellar performance out in Marseilles.
l ALL PART OF A PLAN
I was asked to discuss how the championship was won. Most of the answers were to be found not in the grim final few minutes of a forgettable 17-13 win against a plucky Scotland that were hanging onto the ropes for most of the second half until Huw Jones slashed past James Lowe to raise Irish pulses just a little too much for comfort. No, look back to Marseilles.
