Donal Lenihan: Always good to finish a year with an 'I was there' moment

Since the tournament was expanded from five to six when Italy came on board in 2000, nobody has managed to win three consecutive championships. That has to be Ireland’s main goal. A Grand Slam sounds great but, with question marks surrounding the form and fitness of a number of key figures within the Irish squad, right now, the players would bite your hand off for another title-winning campaign.

Beyond the Six Nations, the topic set to attract the most column inches is the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia. Brace yourself for a barrage of experts selecting their touring squads and likely test combinations and how they will vary over the course of the Six Nations campaign.

No doubt I’ll be a willing accomplice when the time comes but, for me, all that can wait. There was enough quality rugby on show in the year just passed to satisfy even the most discerning of rugby followers.

While Farrell has plenty to be happy about when looking back on 2024, I’m sure he’ll also have mixed feelings as he steps back - at least from a hands-on perspective - from the Irish set up with so many key logistics surrounding the Lions tour requiring his attention.

Looking back on the year just passed, Farrell had plenty moments to savour. The achievement in retaining the Six Nations was only blighted at the death by that last-gasp Marcus Smith drop goal in the late defeat to England at Twickenham which served to identify a few potential shortcomings early on in the year.

The other notable achievement - the highlight of the entire season for me - was the way Ireland responded to a pretty convincing defeat by South Africa in the opening contest of a two test series in Pretoria to defeat the World Cup holders, against all the odds, in Durban a week later.

For me, that ranked as one of the great test victories by an Irish team, right up there with the series-winning third test win over New Zealand in Wellington in 2022. You really had to be in the historic surroundings of an electric Kings Park that July afternoon to fully appreciate the magnitude of what Farrell’s men achieved. To say it was hostile would vastly understate the emotional bear pit Ireland found themselves in, even more so in the way Ireland carried the physical battle to their hosts from the outset.

Seeing the bloodied Springbok second row pairing of Franco Mostert and Eben Etzebeth having to leave the field within minutes of each other in the opening quarter to be stitched put everyone on notice that the physical pummelling Ireland had endured in Loftus Versfeld a week earlier was not going to be repeated. A classic case of getting your retaliation in first.

The fact that Ireland won courtesy of an inspired pair of drop goals from replacement out half Ciaran Frawley in the dying minutes, manufactured by an injury-ravaged make shift back line, with Caolin Blade and Frawley at half back, Stuart McCloskey at inside centre, Garry Ringrose filling in on the left wing and a pretty impressive rookie at full back in Jamie Osborne.

What Ireland achieved that day was truly inspirational, one of those “I was there” moments that will stay with me for a long time, and my personal rugby highlight of the year. What makes it even more noteworthy is it was achieved, away from home, against my undoubted team of the year.

While Farrell’s Ireland delivered some notable milestones, the team that achieved most and has already stolen a serious march on everyone else when it comes to putting solid foundations in place for the 2027 World Cup in Australia, is that Springbok team.

Despite losing two of 13 tests played in 2024, Rassie Erasmus can do no wrong. Apart from the loss to Ireland, South Africa also suffered a crushing last-minute one point defeat to Argentina in Santiago del Estero when Erasmus looked at the wider picture when selecting a largely second-string combination against the Pumas. Regardless of that late setback, they won the Rugby Championship for the first time since 2019.

Driven by a desire to expose as many players as possible to top line test rugby, Erasmus used 50 different players over the course of those 13 tests. I’ve no doubt that full benefit of this approach will come to light in the fullness of time.

Erasmus clearly wants to arrive at a point where he could select two completely different sides on successive weekends with a fair degree of confidence that the performance would not be impacted to any significant degree.

Evidence of that strategy beginning to come to fruition was there for all to see over the recent November’s series. A week after defeating a very strong Scottish side 15-32 in Murrayfield, Erasmus made 12 changes, retaining only Etzebeth, Ox Nche and Bongi Mbonambi, yet still beat England at Twickenham by 20-29.

When you consider that three stalwarts of their back-to-back World Cup-winning squads in Damien Willemse, Lood de Jager and Steven Kitshoff were all ruled out with injuries for the entire year, it makes the achievement in exposing 50 players, including 12 new caps, even more noteworthy.

Equally significant was the strides taken in marrying the traditional Springbok power game with a more expansive blueprint under the direction of the newly appointed assistant coach, former All Black Tony Brown, a recognised visionary when it comes to attack.

Since Brown’s appointment after the 2023 World Cup, the Springboks now average more points and tries scored per game than ever before. Of equal importance, the gains made with ball in hand has been achieved without compromising in any way the core aspects of their traditional strength at scrum and line out, on their tactical kicking game or the all enveloping defensive blitz.

Erasmus has also learned from the error of having an over-reliance on Handré Pollard at out-half in the build up to the last World Cup, leading to an element of panic when the 2019 winner was sidelined due to a calf injury in the months leading up to the tournament in Japan and has to be omitted from their original squad.

When hooker Malcolm Marx was injured at the pool stage, Pollard was summoned from Leicester Tigers as a replacement despite having little or no rugby under his belt. It also meant that back row Deon Fourie would have to step up as emergency cover for Mbonambi, despite not having played in the front row since early on in his career.

Murphy's law dictated that the gamble would be tested to the full when Mbonambi was forced off injured only four minutes into the final against New Zealand. Miraculously, Fourie delivered in the most demanding of circumstances.

Since then, Erasmus has promoted exciting new talents at No 10 in Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Jordan Hendrikze in support of Pollard and Mannie Libbok. That growing strength in depth has also enabled Erasmus to tweak his ever growing bench options according to the opposition.

Across the 13 tests played last year, only once has he opt for a repeat of the extremely brave 7/1 overload of forwards used in the World Cup final, that in the win over Scotland. Across the other 12 tests he selected an even split of 6/2 or 5/3, favouring either an overload of set piece specialists up front or attacking impact players across his back line.

Whether we like it or not, given the ever-increasing attritional nature of the game, it appears logical that the squad carrying the greatest depth and most explosive bench power will prevail in the end, especially in tournament rugby.

It’s also the reason why I’d advocate for only allowing a maximum of six bench players. Think about the implications of that for a while. In the meantime, happy New Year to one and all.