As Ireland's players were preparing for last week’s Guinness Six Nations meeting with France, Garry Ringrose had other things to work on.
The 30-year-old was suspended for the penultimate game of the championship, but last week’s work in camp means he’s available to return to the squad for Simon Easterby’s team in Rome this Saturday (2.15pm, live on RTÉ).
After his red card in round three against Wales for a high tackle on Wales centre Ben Thomas, Ringrose copped the usual ban: six weeks, reduced to three for the usual good behaviour, with a further week cut off upon completion of World Rugby’s coaching intervention programme, known by you and me as 'Tackle School’.
The centre is probably lucky that he’s available for selection this week. The inclusion of Leinster’s URC meeting with Cardiff on the list of games he would be suspended for drew fierce criticism from France, and the ferocity of their performance in Dublin last week can be traced back to that frustration.
Ringrose (below) isn’t the first and won't be the last professional to be sent to tackle school. The coaching intervention process has been in place since 2021, offering a player suspended for an incident involving head contact the chance to reduce their sentence. Crucially, it’s only for first time offenders.
So, how does it all work?
"The tackle school week was an interesting process to go through," Ringrose explained this week.
"You’re going back over the incident, what I believe as a player that I could have done differently in the situation.
"I would have naturally worked quite closely with Simon Easterby as the defence coach and worked closely with Andrew Goodman who was particularly helpful last week, his experience as a centre, understanding that element from the player perspective as well as now.
"Designing little drills to break down the incident a bit into segments, and then that kind of evolved into re-enacting effectively what happened and being acutely aware of what I can do differently in that situation."
Those on-pitch drills are recorded and passed on to World Rugby who review the footage and issue a pass or fail grade. Nobody, it would seem, has ever failed.
"I was breaking it down in different elements what I perceived so I can do better, what Goody [Andrew Goodman] thinks I could have done better.
"And then explaining why you’re doing the drill, what you’re hoping to achieve, what you’re hoping to work on for each different element of it and then the same when you put it all together and re-enacting it. So I had Tommy O’Brien and Ciarán Frawley over the couple of days on a bag helping me out," he added.
It’s hard not to be cynical about the way Tackle School is carried out, and it has almost become a box-ticking exercise to get suspended players back on the pitch as soon as possible.
In justification of it, World Rugby noted in 2022 that in the first year the coaching intervention, 94% of the 120 players who completed the course had not reoffended.
It will be interesting to see if, and how, the red card and suspension alters Ringrose’s approach to defence. The Leinster and Ireland centre has a reputation for being one of the most aggressive defenders in the game.
"It’s kind of situational," he said.
"The incident itself, there was no malice or intent behind it. It was just something that didn’t go right at the time. I guess it's just an experience you go through.
"Good, bad or indifferent at 13 you get thrown loads of pictures and training against Bundee [Aki], Robbie [Henshaw] and Stuart [McCloskey], that happens quite often. Even training against Jordie Barrett you get thrown pictures back at Leinster and you are always trying to learn.
"I guess that’s something that Ben Thomas did. That was a picture I hadn’t seen before and didn’t react accordingly …as I said, it’s the nature of the beast, split-second decisions, high-pressure moments so it’s trying to react as best I can going forward."
Red cards are a rarity for Ireland, with Ringrose’s incident breaking a 42-game run without a sending off since Bundee Aki’s red card in the final round of the 2021 Six Nations.
In the 20 minutes Ringrose was off the pitch in Cardiff, Wales outscored Ireland 15-3, while they also shipped 15 points during their two sin-bin periods in last weekend's defeat to France.
He said: "I guess you don’t want to put your teammates in that position. You go off. It’s a tough thing for them to do against any opposition, one man down for 20 minutes.
"I think was evident the two yellow cards we got last weekend. Playing 20 minutes with one man down is a tough thing to do."
And with his suspension now over, Ringrose is hoping to make up for that indiscretion as Ireland finish their campaign in Rome on Saturday.
"It’s tough because you know how much work goes into the week," said the Dubliner.
"And I guess when a game doesn’t go your way, it is a tough thing to go through if you’re out there playing. Tough thing to watch if you’re part of the wider group.
"I was in on Sunday evening and because we work really hard and prepare as best we can, a lot of the guys would – coaches included – carry the weight of a defeat and be quite harsh on themselves and things that didn’t go right.
"There’s a bit of ripping that bandage off on Sunday evening, Monday morning in the reviews, being honest with ourselves and then getting out training today, a highly competitive session, getting it all out of the system. Flick the switch to attack the week."
Listen to the RTÉ Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Watch Italy v Ireland (from 1.15pm) and France v Scotland (from 7.30pm) in the Guinness Six Nations on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player this Saturday.
Follow a live blog of both games on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app, and listen to live commentary of Italy v Ireland on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
