While Saturday's deflating loss to Scotland in Edinburgh is a day that most Irish rugby players and fans wish to quickly forget, six of the fifteen who started the match in a green jersey have been named as the best players in their position from the first round of matches.
Accenture are in control of the statistical analysis for this year's Six Nations, and they revealed that despite the poor performance of the team as a unit, particularly defensively in the first half, a number of players actually put up good numbers.
While Ireland's lineout was a disaster on the day, the scrum was on form and as such both Jack McGrath and Tadgh Furlong have been acknowledged, as have back rowers CJ Stander and Sean O'Brien. The half-back combination of Conor Murray and Paddy Jackson also did enough to make the XV.
Despite @IrishRugby's loss a number of stand out individual performances see 6 Irish players in the #RBS6Nations Team of the Week #SeeBeyond pic.twitter.com/PWWeSeXx9q
— Accenture Ireland (@Accenture_Irl) February 8, 2017
The team in full:
15. Stuart Hogg (Scotland)
14. Noa Nakaitaci (France)
13. Jonathan Davies (Wales)
12. Owen Farrell (England)
11. Liam Williams (Wales)
10. Paddy Jackson (Ireland)
9. Conor Murray (Ireland)
1. Jack McGrath (Ireland)
2. Ross Ford (Scotland)
3. Tadhg Furlong (Ireland)
4. Richie Gray (Scotland)
5. Alun Wyn Jones (Wales)
6. CJ Stander (Ireland)
7. Sean O'Brien (Ireland)
8. Louis Picamoles (France)
What this tells us is that while Ireland as a collective were disappointing, there were a number of units that did indeed click and offer encouragement going forward. It also tells us that statistics aren't everything, but we knew that anyway.
What will happen if we go out and beat Italy at the weekend is anyone's guess, hopefully a big win will result in a full Irish XV in the team of the week for Matchday 2.
