The 'real change' that Brian O'Driscoll has seen in Garry Ringrose

Topping the chart for missed tackles is an accolade no Guinness Six Nations player wants to have, but legendary Ireland midfielder Brian O’Driscoll has no qualms that Garry Ringrose - the current wearer of the No13 Irish shirt - is heading up that category after two rounds of this year’s championship.

The scorer of the win-sealing try against France in Dublin last Saturday, Ringrose is ranked as joint 35th in the tournament for the number of tackles - 20 - he has made so far. However, in the missed tackles section, the 28-year-old is joint-first along with Wales’ Joe Hawkins, France’s Anthony Jelonch, Italy’s Giacomo Nicotera and England’s Owen Farrell.

Missing tackles is something that isn’t new for Ringrose - it's an aspect of his past performances with Ireland that was regularly highlighted. But this time around, O’Driscoll isn’t analysing those misses as negatives. Instead, he insisted that with those misses the current Irish outside centre is still working positively to disrupt the opposition and ensure the ball doesn’t get away to the faster opponents outside him.

Appearing on the Newstalk Off the Ball radio show in Ireland, O’Driscoll ran the rule over the highwire act that is Ringrose regularly shooting out of the Irish defensive line, something he describes as a real change this year.

“He will go down as having a few misses against Wales [four, the same number as in the game versus France], but what he does do is he changes the point of what that attacker wants to do because rarely does that individual get the ball away as they would have wanted.

“A lot of his misses, he comes across the front of them so you have to duck back inside and what happens outside then is players have to check their runs. It’s not to the same intensity, or the pass that might then be thrown on his inside shoulder. It just slows it down which allows the scramble to change, to react to his decision-making. And then sometimes he gets huge collisions, man and ball. He smashed Dan Biggar last week.

“What looked a bit different this week (against France), he is keeping the integrity of the line and sometimes there will be a three-on-two and he is controlling it well on a drift but then this firing from a controlled position - the fires almost catches the player in possession off guard before they have a chance to really make a couple of decisions they feel as though they have in their hand.

“He doesn’t always wipe them. He got bunted early against (Gael) Fickou but then Fickou just carries into contact and that play is dead and the defence has a chance to settle. The nervous part of defending at 13 is there is always danger out wide, the fast men, so you want (the opposition) to give it to the bigger ball players more often than not, keep it away from the fast guys that have X-factor.

“That is what he is doing, stopping it. By shooting a lot of time he is denying (Thomas) Ramos, (Ethan) Dumortier, (Damian) Penaud from getting the ball from Fickou and from (Yoram) Moefana. That has been a real change this year. He is given licence to do it from (defence coach) Simon Easterby, but it seems to be rewarded at the moment because it is working for them and is stopping those danger players getting more possessions.”

It wasn’t just in defence that Ringrose won praise from O’Driscoll, as what he has achieved in attack was also lauded by his fellow Ireland No13. “Garry Ringrose’s game has consistently elevated this last year,” reckoned O’Driscoll. “He is playing brilliant, brilliant rugby. Just the thought behind everything that he is doing.

“He is like a student who has done all the cramming and this constant workload is coming to fruition where it is real strategy to what he is doing and then on top of it, he has a phenomenal engine. Like working, working, working.

“That last sequence of play [the decisive try against France], I followed him watching it and how many involvements he had clearing rucks in just being the key man and then just working hard on the outside and then just having the strength.

“If you watch, the carry is on the wrong arm. He fends (Matthieu) Jalibert with his left arm across his body but that power close to the level of exhaustion, you see the reaction when he scores. It’s rare he is properly sucking diesel but he was blowing. It is this clarity of judgement under total fatigue where this Ireland team is now beginning to set itself apart.”