Devin Toner playing starring role in Ireland’s engine room

There is a temptation to suggest that Devin Toner has grown into his role with Ireland, comfortable without being complacent albeit in a process that demands a continuous assessment.

On Saturday, the 6ft 10in secondrow will win his 14th cap for his country, once again in partnership with team captain Paul O’Connell. Toner has rewarded coach Joe Schmidt’s faith and his performance graph in this season’s Six Nations is following an upward curve.

He led Ireland’s tackle count (17) in the 13-10 defeat against England, quite an achievement for the Leinster lock and recognition of his work rate. He gently deflects the approbation: “[I’m] happy enough with the tackle count but obviously as a team our defence was good, but there was things we had to work on.

“Going through the video with Les [Kiss, defence coach] there was a couple of spacing issues, couple of getting-off-the-line issues and the try that we let in wasn’t great. That was down to spacing in the line so as a whole it was quite good, but there was a little bit of stuff to tweak.”

There are other numbers that can be drawn down from the credit side of the ledger. Ireland won all 16 lineouts on Rory Best’s throw at Twickenham, maintaining their ascendancy in this facet of the game tournament-wide with figures of 45-3.

Improved lineout
Toner explains

: “It [the lineout] was quite good with the quality that they had in terms of [Courtney] Lawes and [Joe] Launchbury. They’re a quite tall lineout as well, so Paulie [O’Connell] has done really well with the calling systems and stuff. [We’re] pretty pleased with how the lineout has been going so far.

“There is always stuff to work on. Looking at last year it was an area that we needed to work on so coming into this year, it was a big [emphasis] for Plum [forwards’ coach, John Plumtree].

“We did put quite a bit of work into it coming into the Six Nations and the more you work on it the better you get in games, it kind of feeds into it.”

Italy caused Ireland huge problems out of touch in Rome last season. Toner a second half replacement recalls: “They do have quite a good defensive lineout, especially [Sergio] Parisse; he’s quite good at reading the ball and getting up and disrupting. That was one of the main factors [last year] and then obviously we did get a bit disjointed with some of the injuries that went on during the game.

“But again, we’ll just have a look at their team. They have quite a tall pack this year with Josh Furno, Quinten Geldenhuys and Parisse, so myself and Paulie will just have to look at where the best options to win it are. Yeah they will be a threat. Going into the last game, they had one of the best percentages for their lineout as well. So it will be up to us to negate that as well.

Last season’s defeat, Ireland’s first since Italy made it the Six Nations in 2000, still smarts, encapsulated in Toner’s observation that “no one wants to feel like that again, to be honest”.

There is one final statistic upon which Toner remarks during the conversation. Ireland managed to propel themselves into the English 22 at Twickenham on six occasions and not once did they leave with points.

That’s an imbalance that has to be addressed.

“We have to be more clinical. We are going to need to take our chances against Italy as soon as we get their 22.”