Ex-New Zealand skipper Justin Marshall, who was speaking alongside former England Captain Mike Tindall on BBC Radio 5 Live, believes that Ireland lack any creativity in attack to really challenge for the world cup.
The 81 times capped scrum-half believes Ireland have failed to replace the gap left by Brian O'Driscoll's retirement. Marshall also views Jared Payne as a "makeshift centre" and added that Ireland's attack has been "lacklustre" at times. Marshall sites the "makeshift" centre combination as the chief reason for a lot of their poor attacking form as he explained:
They have not got a (centre) combo that really do challenge the opposition.
When you go into a restructure like they have when you lose quality centres (like O'Driscoll and D'Arcy), you are trying to forge a way forward. You have got to be slightly conservative with the way you go about implementing your game plan.
These same reservations were echoed by Mike Tindall. The 2003 World Cup winner thinks that Ireland "are a bit one-dimensional in attack" and he questioned whether Ireland have the ability to score tries against the big teams like New Zealand. This is the one major question mark that Tindall has of the Irish team and believes that Joe Schmidt's men have everything else in place to go all the way.
BBC Radio 5 Live
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