Monday, March 22, 2010
ANTI-CLIMAX.
Never have the words been as appropriate as they were in Dublin on Saturday night.
Earlier in the day, Ireland threw the ball around with abandon, the 80,000 crowd roared themselves hoarse and life in north Dublin and throughout the 32 counties never seemed so good.
By 6.45pm, though, Croke Park was the last place anybody wanted to be.
For the most part, the Grand Slam champions of 2009 performed like the grand slam chumps of 2010 and in the end justice was served.
Scotland deserved their win, not because they were world beaters but because they prospered in the "nothing to lose" attitude against a side seemingly overwhelmed at the prospect of winning their fifth Triple Crown in seven years.
True to expectation, Ireland started off at a rate of knots, attempting to reproduce a session of training ground moves that threatened to overwhelm the Scots. Scotland coach Andy Robinson agreed that they "looked tremendous" in those early minutes and while he quite rightly praised his team for their resolution and commitment in defence, he would also have had to admit that his side was assisted by the appalling number of unforced errors by the Irish.
Within the first four minutes, Tommy Bowe had thrown a wretched pass, Gordon D’Arcy and Rory Best had knocked on and Jonny Sexton had a kick charged down. While some of those intricate moves might well have carved the Scots open, most foundered because the players failed badly in the very basics of the game?
And so it continued with the stats telling their own story. Ireland knocked on seven times in the first 40 minutes alone and turned the ball over ten times, five in each half.
Declan Kidney’s bitterly disappointed visage reflected just how shocked he was that his team had failed so badly and being the honest, soul-searching kind of man that he is, would also have been wondering about his own performance as well.
Picking Jonny Sexton ahead of Ronan O’Gara was a hard call for Kidney for a number of reasons.
And when he finally bit the bullet and made the inevitable alteration, the changeover was nothing short of a public relations disaster. Of course he made the call before a very kickable penalty was awarded in the 52nd minute at a time when Ireland were trailing 17-7 and Sexton had already missed two shots at goal, one from pretty comfortable range.
You can only imagine his emotions when he realised O’Gara was waiting to come in as he contemplated a kick that might very well have defined his career as an international player.
As it transpired, fourth official Peter Fitzgibbon from Limerick wouldn’t allow O’Gara into the game and an obviously perplexed Sexton was left to take on the shot at goal. That he put it between the sticks was a testament to his temperament but it wasn’t a very pretty scenario.
O’Gara went on to play impeccably, leaving one to wonder what could have transpired if he had been on from the start. Kidney avoids the ongoing debate with the familiar mantra that "I am a lucky man to have two excellent out-halves at my disposal." But on this evidence O’Gara has a very clear edge.
The Eddie O’Sullivan era was noted for a failure to trust in the replacement panel and while the same criticism couldn’t be laid at Kidney’s door, it was difficult to understand how he kept faith for so long in Rory Best.
The Ulsterman is a true warrior and as honest as they come but he had something of a ‘mare on Saturday and surely owes his presence on the pitch for the full duration to Kidney’s lack of trust in the youthful and untried Sean Cronin. Rather weakly, I thought, the coach referred to Best’s influence on the scrummage in part explanation of this stance.
However, the longer the match went on, the clearer it became Best wouldn’t have hit the proverbial barn door with a banjo when it came to his line-out throwing.
The stats tell you that in an area where they have been dominant all year, Ireland lost seven of their own line-outs. Not all down to Best, of course, and full marks to Andy Robinson’s defensive analysis.
Paul O’Connell, Donncha O’Callaghan, Jamie Heaslip and David Wallace combined to take four Scottish throws and impressively protect many of their own, but it was an area where Kidney would have hoped to reap a richer harvest.
For what it is worth, Ireland conceded seven penalties to Scotland’s nine while losing the free count 6-1, undoubtedly one good reason why Tomás O’Leary was unable to make his customary big impression.
Consequently, all too little was seen of the usual go-forward players, Wallace, Stephen Ferris, Keith Earls, Brian O’Driscoll and at the end of the day one has to agree with Robinson in his claim that "even though they threw wave after wave of attack at us, we disrupted their line-out ball, we got ourselves in the right end of the pitch towards the end and figured out a way to win it."
And Kidney was right, too, when frequently pointing out that "this Six Nations remains a competition in which each team has every chance of beating any of the others".
As the very worthy but relieved new champions France discovered at the Stade de France on Saturday night!
Scorers for Ireland: B O’Driscoll, T Bowe try each; J Sexton pen con, R O’Gara pen, con.
Scorers for Scotland: J Beattie try, D Parks 5 pens, one drop goal.
IRELAND: G Murphy; T Bowe, B O’Driscoll capt, G D’Arcy, K Earls; J Sexton, T O’Leary; C Healy, R Best, J Hayes; D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell; S Ferris, D Wallace, J Heaslip.
Replacements: R Kearney for Murphy, injured 27; R O’Gara for Sexton 52; T Buckley for Hayes 83.
SCOTLAND: H Southwell; S Lamong, N de Luca, G Morrison, M Evans; D Parks, C Cusiter (capt); A Jacobsen, R Ford, E Murray; J Hamilton, A Kellock; K Brown, J Beattie, J Barclay.
Replacements: A McDonald for Brown, 3 times; R Gray for Hamilton 53; A Dickinson for Jacobsen 67; S Danielli for S Lamont 77.
Referee: J Kaplan (South Africa).
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