Brian O’Driscoll highlights a really worrying area for Ireland
Systematic.
Ireland may have edged past Australia in a thrilling encounter in Sydney on Saturday, but Brian O’Driscoll believes there is one area of concern that Andy Farrell’s side must fix quickly.
Speaking after the match, O’Driscoll pointed to Ireland’s defensive cohesion, suggesting players are still adjusting between different defensive systems.
“There’s definitely an issue with kind of transferring one defensive system to another,” O’Driscoll told Off The Ball.
“It’s ingrained in these Leinster players, and actually it’s not just in them.
“I saw Stu McCloskey at one stage shooting out of the line. And the big thing about shooters, you know, coming out of the line, you have to stop the ball, or you have to force the player back inside. But Australia were getting the ball out the back. They were doing those little loop plays. They had big variety of hitting the short runner after that, and sometimes going out the back.
“So actually, Ireland looked incredibly exposed, and that Hugo Keenan tackle on Suaalii was significant. You know, it goes out to 19 points, maybe 21 points, and then all of a sudden we don’t have an opportunity to score just before half-time and it’s a very, very different game going into half-time with momentum on our side.”
O’Driscoll believes the issue stems from habits developed under Leinster’s defensive system, with players expecting teammates to react in a certain way.
“They’ll be very disappointed with an awful lot of those errors,” O’Driscoll added.
The big thing about the shooting process as well, and I have sympathy for these players because it is something that has been drilled and drilled over the course of the last few years, particularly at Leinster with Jacques Nienaber’s defence.
“And they’re expecting other people to follow them in, so when they have line speed off the line, they think whoever’s outside is gonna shut it off as well, and that actually hasn’t been happening because it’s a different system. So I would imagine it’ll be significantly better next week.
“There must be five or six examples at least around players shooting and not stopping the ball and the issue is your hustle from your inside and your jam from your outside then gets kind of disconcerted of not really knowing what’s going on.
“If you’re playing soft and someone shoots, you leave this massive dog leg, and likewise then the hustle on the inside doesn’t know whether to double under or whether to plug the inside and stay where the player’s being forced back in.
“So there’s all this uncertainty around the defensive system, that happened a little bit in the France game at the start of the Six Nations. It happened over in Chicago, where they just weren’t very connected on that front, and I think another week will help.
“You’re hurting the team if you’re gonna shoot that way.”
Ireland take on Japan next.
🗣️ 'There's definitely an issue with transferring one defensive system to another… Ireland looked incredibly exposed!'
If Ireland do not get some of their defensive issues under control this week, Brian O'Driscoll fears Japan might 'run free', and even worse in Eden Park a… pic.twitter.com/6hJbgLYGgj
— Off The Ball (@offtheball) July 7, 2026
