RUGBY: Triple 'frown' for Ireland
IT was a predictable championship and an almost predictable outcome for Ireland in their final fling.
Declan Kidney's side lost the two games which mattered having plodded through this championship without really showing the huge potential they have.
Last November after a draw with Australia and a win over World Champions, South Africa, there was talk of semi-finals at the World Cup 2011.
Continue to produce performances as they have in the Six Nations and Ireland may just make the last eight in New Zealand.
The defending champions lost in Paris to France, which was probably expected. That was the Championship Trophy as good as handed over to Les Bleus.
Then with a Triple Crown there for the taking and giving Ireland something tangible to take from what, on the whole, was a good Six Nations having come back from the battering in France to beat England at Twickenham, the Irish flopped.
Everyone knew it was never going to be a walk in the park, but on the whole, player for player, the men in green had the better of their opposite numbers.
Shame they failed to turn up for the occasion. It was a pathetic performance with a comedy of errors throughout.
Ireland plodded along for most of the evening, were somewhat clumsy, and although they produced little pockets of brilliance, never got momentum going.
And a side which loses seven or eight of their set piece lineouts is always going to have a difficult afternoon.
The scrum also struggled and while the lineout malfunctioned, it was the scrum area where Ireland lost the game.
One has to question if centre, Gordon D'Arcy was actually fully fit. He did not like going into contact, either in attack mode or defence, and he made Graeme Morrison look good.
Would it not have been better to have put Paddy Wallace in and give him a go.
Hooker, Rory Best, was good about the park and in the scrum, but what was going on with the lineout?
Perhaps if there had been experience on the bench instead of Sean Cronin as the hooker replacement, Best would have suffered the same indignation as outhalf, Jonathan Sexton and been replaced early in the second half.
Why not bring Leo Cullen, who was outstanding in the early games and also brought leadership to the team, on when the lineout was failing – it was just as much the jumper as it was the thrower who were to blame.
One had to feel sorry for Sexton. The decision to take him off – which was based more so on his kicking than his other influence on the game – had already been made before he got ready to tee up a 50th minute penalty.
What followed was bizarre. He was going to come off, but then did not – although given the fact the penalty had already been awarded he could not.
To the young player's credit, having missed two kicks previously, he regained his composure to put over a good penalty, but had to yield to Ronan O'Gara.
The Munster master showed his full experience within minutes, superbly kicking the conversion to Tommy Bowe's try with consummate ease from the touchline much to the delight to the obvious large fan club he had in the stands.
Scotland, having sensed the weakness in the midfield with an off-colour D'Arcy were to work away at that and the other areas they targeted was the backrow where Jamie Heaslip and David Wallace were almost non existent during the breakdown, and Stephen Ferris was marginally better at least making his presence felt.
Ireland have to sort a lot of things out before heading 'Down Under' to New Zealand and Australia for the summer tour – if the set piece malfunctioned like it did against the Scots, they will get pulverised.
It was not all bad – well for about 25 minutes in total.
Ireland opened well, but were frenetic in the opening stages, as if almost going for the big win, before even getting a foothold on the game.
And while there was some lovely handling, line breaks and running, there was just as many errors.
When Parks kicked Scotland ahead on five minutes it did sound a warning that it was going to be a tough day against a side which has shown progress during the Championship.
But then O'Driscoll raced in for a try.
It came, ironically, off a stolen Scottish lineout and with the ball flung right from the next move Sexton broke and put the prolific Irish centre through with a hint of a slightly forward pass.
Sexton converted and everyone settled down for what they felt was going to be a victory.
That was as good as it got in an error-ridden Irish first half, Scotland were back in front minutes later when John Beattie got in for an unconverted try.
Sexton missed a penalty at a time when Ireland needed to get in front and the inevitable happened, Parks first kicking a penalty and then dropping a goal to leave the Irish trailing 14-7.
When Sexton failed with an early second half penalty, the writing was on the wall for him and O'Gara was already warming up.
The Leinster outhalf did exchange a penalty with Parks, but O'Gara took over and nailed a great conversion after an equally impressive play from Ireland which had followed a passage of play which the crowd felt was the turning of the game.
But the Irish failed to grab the game by the scruff of the neck, the 'Killer B's' in the Scottish backrow of Beattie, Kelly Brown and John Barclay were in control at the breakdown and Scotland grew in confidence.
O'Gara and Parks exchanged penalties to leave the game poised at 20-all with five minutes to go – but it was Scotland who seized the initiative, Rob Kearney caved under pressure from Simon Danielli and Nick de Luca and it was left to man of the match, Park, to kick the Scots to a thoroughly deserved victory.
Kidney was left with a lot of questions, the answers to which must be found before boarding that plane to New Zealand in June.
And if the answers are not found on the Summer Tour – the World Cup could not be far enough away.
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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