Trevor Hogan was impressed by much of what he saw from Ireland in their Six Nations draw with Wales on Sunday, but tonight on Off The Ball he picked out a few areas Joe Schmidt's side can go on.
The former Ireland second row joined us and The Irish Times' Gavin Cummiskey to review aspects of the game with France on the horizon and while he believes Schmidt deserves credit for the performance, he says the head coach will have identified certain areas to improve on.
"Now, there were some areas that he'd flag himself after the game that they could tighten up on," said Trevor, before bringing up a couple of instances of slightly under-par defensive work out wide.
Wales’ Justin Tipuric is tackled by Ireland’s Jamie Heaslip and CJ Stander ©INPHO/Billy Stickland
"If that was against France, that would be two tries conceded, so that has to be straightened and they did straighten it out in the second half. A lot of those ones watching it back are off turnover or if we pile in for a counter-ruck. If we do that against France, they'll kill us like Argentina killed us. So we have to be a little bit more cute and I think they will be."
Trevor also praised Jamie Heaslip, who he described as the best "counter-rucker" and was looking forward to the back-row combination to come next week between the Leinster No 8 and flankers CJ Stander and Sean O'Brien together.
Gavin also touched on the highs and lows of Simon Zebo's performance at full-back, while he also compared his approach to that of long-time No 15 Rob Kearney, while Trevor also gave his take on that.
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