It’s about as rare as hen’s teeth that I would back a loser not be gutted about it. But Saturday was one of those days. I reckoned that Ireland would struggle against England based on the form of both teams going into the final weekend of the Competition. But Form counts for nothing in these clashes and we won our 7th clash of the last 8th against England,which is an amazing statistic given the playing numbers of both countries.
The Irish Rugby team carried on from what our Cricketer’s started and our Horses, Trainers and Jockeys continued at Cheltenham with a resounding win over the 2011 6 Nation champions in a throbbing Avivia Stadium on Saturday evening. Over 20,000 English supporters travelled over in the hope that they would witness their team completing a Grand Slam. We had nothing to play for except Pride. But this team is built on Pride and they came out with the passion, intensity and accuracy that we had struggled to bring consistently in the previous 4 matches.
The score line of 24-8 doesn’t reflect how dominant we were in all areas of the game. England won the first kick off and that was about as far as they got. The key moment of the match for me was the first scrum when Ireland called a 8 man shove and shunted the Men in white backwards and won a penalty. While the Irish forwards were congratulating their front row, Johnny Sexton had other things on his mind and despite us being in our own half he sensed weakness and took a quick tap and a couple of phases later Brian O Driscoll was touching down in the left hand corner only for the referee to rule the try out for a forward pass that looked to be a marginal call. If England had expected an easy evening now they knew they were in a game.
Complacency is a curse in sport and if your mindset isn’t right going into a match it’s nigh on impossible to recover during a match at the highest level. Looking at England’s performance it seems that they were starting too believe their own press and against the most experienced Irish Squad of all time that was always going to be dangerous. Not only are Ireland more experienced they are also packed with Leaders and proven winners at Heineken Cup, Magners League and Six Nations level. They used the disappointment and hurt from the Welsh defeat to circle the wagons and get the mindset just right this week. Irish teams always are at their best when they play with a little bit of madness and mayhem. There is a TV show I watch about a High School Football team in Texas called ‘Friday Night Lights’. Their Coaches final message before they go into battle is always “Clear Eyes, Full hearts, Cant Lose” and for me the Irish Team achieved this perfectly. Emotionally we were right on the money.
While no Irish player played poorly its important to note another milestone achieved by Brian O’Driscoll whose dart over the line gave him his 25th Six Nations try, eclipsing a record set in the 1930’s by Scotland Ian Smith. He will refuse to dwell on any individual accolades but time after time he answers his critics not with words but with actions. Surely their can be no debate now that he is Ireland greatest ever Rugby player and one of our great sportsmen. He would have been frustrated by some of the mistakes that we were making but he didn’t panic and he and the coaches must take credit for how they prepared the team this week.
We have a stronger squad now than we did before the tournament. It was Sean O’Briens first 6 nations and if there was a Lions Tour in the morning he would be the Test match blindside forward. Mike Ross despite not being selected for the November Internationals is now the Key man in our team. Jake Howard the former Wallaby coach always said that the first position he picks in his team is the Tighthead prop and the 2nd is the sub tighthead!. Without a Scrum you have nothing and Mike has brought the form he was showing with Leinster onto the International stage. Fergus McFadden, Eoin Reddan, Keith Earls and Andrew Trimble have all laid down markers for selection as starters come the World cup in October.
With profit in our pockets from the 6 Nations we can add to that over the coming months with the Magners League and the Heineken Cup reaching the knockout stages. I expect to have a few recommendations later this week for this weekends Magners Leagues fixtures and might have a nice winner in the Super League too!
