O'Connell a rising star all right

IT WAS reinforced on Saturday just how important the lineout remains in rugby. At Croke Park and The Rec!

The most successful teams lay foundations around the set-piece, particularly the lineout. Just look what South Africa have achieved these past two years.

In the first four Tri-Nations games this season Australia lost 14 lineouts and New Zealand 12. South Africa lost only four, Victor Matfield the man doing most of the damage so the correlation between success and a well-oiled lineout is indisputable.

Both Ireland and South Africa had 12 lineouts on Saturday. We lost two on our own throw. One was a penalty, the other miscommunication. South Africa lost four but only had three clean takes in the whole game.

Paul O’Connell, on this performance, has cemented his place as one of the best locks in the world. He out-thought and out-fought Matfield in the air. Switching John Smit back to hooker, ultimately, didn’t work.

Hats off also to Gert Smal, who would actually have a better knowledge of the South African lineout with Smit throwing than with Bismarck du Plessis and when the latter came in and Smit switched to tighthead their lineout steadied but Ireland then found parity in the scrum.

You cannot underestimate the impact all this had on the match. Sure, the scrum didnt always go well but there were only 13 scrums in the whole game (I have another stat: In the 2009 Six Nations the average scrums per game was 15. The average lineouts was 25). That’s nearly twice as much possession coming off the lineout.

Against Australia, Ireland disrupted four of the Wallabies’ 12 throws. This, and taking 13 of our 14 throws, kept us in the game during a difficult period.

Jamie Heaslip and Donncha O’Callaghan deserve credit as well but Jerry Flannery and Paul clearly have a great relationship.

Not many in Ireland would have noticed London Irish beat Bath 16-0 at The Rec on Saturday evening. Bath won four lineouts in the whole game. We won all ours in the driving rain. That pretty much sorted the result. My engine room partner Nick Kennedy, you may have noticed, is another who excels in the aerial arts. A lighter lock (than me, anyway) he only needs one guy to get him up. He’s a phenomenal operator.

Steve Borthwick also runs a very good lineout but, for me, O’Connell and Matfield remain the best guys out there.

Lineout superiority doesn’t just happen; it takes hours of painstaking research through a number of layers. The lineout leaders come in on a Monday morning (just hookers and locks at London Irish) to watch the upcoming opposition’s last four games and if we’ve played them in the last year that’s examined as well.

You see how they defend, whether they give you front, middle or back, and how they defend in certain areas of the pitch. Then you come up with a plan of what lineouts will be the most effective for the specific game. A few special plays, to create try-scoring opportunities, are thrown into the mix too, be it attacking around the front, peeling off or down the middle.

Next we look for tells. Does the jumper tap to go forward or back? Does he have hand signals or eye signals or can the hooker throw in something that changes the call.

Then we go to audio. Turn up the volume to the maximum and listen for triggers or calls they use. Write these down and memorise them. Sure enough if you hear a Matfield or a Borthwick making a familiar call you shout over him so the hooker might get confused. Cross-calling can be a nightmare, especially when they have lost a few early ones and are feeling the heat. A home crowd usually get a whiff of this as well and helps out.

Obviously, serious teams get inventive against good lineouts. That’s where the coaches, sitting in the stand with a live feed, must get vital messages on, through the water carrier, to provide alternatives or plug some gaps.

A successful lineout is not just winning your own ball,there’s also the quality of possession you create. It’s all about clean delivery to the nine and how many defenders are sucked in. Some teams gamble and mark up all areas but it can be more profitable to camp out in the middle and the back. Give them the front. Fifteen out of 15 lineouts to the front will at best set up a solid maul. By the time the ball gets to the outhalf, our seven will be in his face.

Anything over an 80 per cent success rate is a decent return so disrupting 25 per cent of the opposition throw is a good day’s work.

South Africa didnt gather one clean lineout in the first half, with O’Connell and Heaslip even pinching two of Smit’s throws. The Springbok captain’s first throw of the second half went straight to a fully stretched Matfield but Nigel Owens penalised him for a crooked throw. It took 51 minutes before this World Cup-winning structure finally put clean, off-the-top ball, into scrumhalf Fourie du Preez’s hands.

That is a massive compliment to the work behind the scenes of Smal, O’Connell and the pack. John Hayes must also get a mention. Most props are around 5ft 10 in, Hayes is 6 ft 4in. That’s six inches closer to the clouds and his raw strength holds you up there, even if your timing is off.

I had the pleasure of attending Geordan Murphy and Lewis Moody’s joint testimonial dinner on Wednesday night at Battersea Park in London. A thousand people came to pay tribute to Lewis and Geordan, who has been a real ambassador for Irish rugby here in England since joining Leicester practically straight after leaving Newbridge College. We played against each other in the 1996 schools final at Lansdowne Road and are both Kildare men, of course.

The Irish lads in camp couldn’t get across but all the English greats, like Martin Johnson, Jason Leonard and Will Greenwood were there. Frankie Sheahan also showed up and I heard Mal O’Kelly was en route but I was minding myself so headed home early.

The hilarious, to be fair, Austin Healy interviewed Johnson, Greenwood and Matt Dawson. Now, Dawson and Greenwood have been getting stuck into Johnson in the media recently. Frankie noted their bravery in sharing the stage with the England head coach.

I also had the folks over last week. Mam and Dad come to relax because it must be pretty full on with seven of my nieces and nephews near home. My brother Danny has two and one on the way, my sister Mary has four and Yvonne the one.

I managed to get tickets to the O2 to see Rafael Nadal beaten by Roger Soderling. I found it quite ironic that our family business, Casey Courts, have installed tennis courts all over Ireland for the last 35 years yet when I asked Dad if he wanted to come he said, nah. He would be much happier spending an afternoon following Pádraig Harrington around.