Coping with hype part of the deal

On RugbySo begins the hype. For all the flaws, winning away games six days apart while scoring eight tries and conceding one confirms the pre-championship belief that Eddie O'Sullivan is moulding together Ireland's most genuine title contenders since the 1985 vintage. If this comes with heightened expectation levels then so be it.

In the immediate aftermath of Saturday's win in Rome, assistant coach Declan Kidney was asked by a French journalist if there would now be high expectations in Ireland and if so how the Irish team would cope. Malcolm O'Kelly also spoke of the inevitable Grand Slam talk back in Ireland and on RTÉ radio yesterday morning Des Cahill spoke of the "danger of hype".

Well, it goes with the territory. Teams don't tend to sneak up on tilts at Grand Slams, or Triple Crowns or championships, much less World Cups, without someone noticing. Coping with expectations and hype is part of the deal. Hype is good. It means the Irish team is going well. It means rugby is being sold in a positive light, even if there will be nothing like the stadia facilities to cope with the next two home games. If there was no hype, or expectations, we'd be back in the grim mid-1990s.

Compare and contrast with the Scots and the Welsh. The experiment of utilising Gordon Ross's strategic kicking to complement a fine Scottish pack having been abandoned, the gamble on the pedestrian Brendan Laney in Paris on Sunday looked even worse. Coach Ian McGeechan might as well go back to Gregor Townsend's enigmatic trickery at outhalf and have done with it, or perhaps even Chris Paterson.

Wales, ironically, might be feeling a bit more chipper about life than the Scots this week, though I'd still fancy the Scots to beat them. The recall of 34-year-old Jonathan Humphreys as a Mick Galwey-type, galvanic figure after the limp leadership of a sadly off-form and viciously pilloried Colin Charvis underlined the importance of an inspirational captain.

It also went some way to improving their lineout ills, and with Mark Taylor regaining his touch Wales definitely have more firepower out wide. But it was still a damage-limitation exercise to a large degree, perhaps inspired too by the fear/hatred of a one-off meeting with England.

In any cases, quick fixes are in short supply, and it is as much because of good husbandry as the combination of highly skilled coaches and players over time that Ireland have been among the upper tier for the last couple of seasons, finishing third, second and third in the last three Six Nations. By putting Scotland and Italy to the sword on their own turf they have underlined that status.

The very fact there were 20 unforced errors, according to the official, if unreliable, match stats underlines the scope for improvement. But that, in a sense, is one of the encouraging signs of Ireland's performances to date. They've won each game handsomely while suggesting there's another 20 or 30 per cent to achieve.

It wouldn't be stretching things to say Ireland have been more impressive than England or France to date. England's back play still looks to be struggling without the visionary and highly technical coaching of Brian Ashton. A graph charting their best days coincides with Ashton's presence and right now the experiment of playing Charlie Hodgson as an auxiliary outhalf at first centre seems merely to have confused them.

GRANTED, it can be interpreted as a return to the Jonny Wilkinson-Mike Catt axis which was the play-making platform for some of their best days, and perhaps - with the World Cup in mind - it will prove to be a step backwards before two steps forward.

However, it has left England without a real target runner, a Kevin Maggs-Rob Henderson-Damien Traille type of centre to straighten the line and get them over the gain line. Defensively too, it has left England looking a little bit more vulnerable judging by the way Taylor crashed through Hodgson before failing to set up the supporting Rhys Williams or Kevin Morgan for a try and a half-time lead at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday.

In any event, as things stand, Ireland look the more settled side of the big three, for France are still struggling to resolve their outhalf problem. The return of Francois Gelez brought predictable improvement in their place-kicking return - and how his presence might have made for an altogether more fascinating endgame at Twickenham.

But Bernard Laporte looks reluctant to pick him and for one obvious reason. Gelez looks two-paced, that is slow, and slower still. Not only does this mean he poses little attacking threat from outhalf, it also means Gelez requires extra defensive protection judging by the way Paterson took him on on the inside early in the second-half of the France-Scotland game on Sunday, and later by Townsend on his outside. In a mean defence, which only conceded one try to England despite being on the back foot for much of the game at Twickenham, and scarcely looked like conceding one against the toothless Scots, Gelez is the weakest link in the chain.

Recalling how David Humphreys exposed Ramiro Pez's injured ankle in the last quarter in the Stadio Flaminio on Saturday, that could be another argument for retaining Humphreys next Saturday week, regardless of whether Ronan O'Gara plays next weekend. There's never much between them anyhow, though there's no doubt O'Gara had been playing the better rugby until Brett Sinkinson stamped on his ankle in the Celtic League final, and that overall he is the more reliable, consistent player.

But, were the positions reversed, and O'Gara had come in for an injured Humphreys and scored 43 points in two games, the arguments for retaining O'Gara would be just as compelling. Humphreys's confidence must be sky-high, and the team have hit a rythym with him, while it's possible he was Ireland's leading tackler on Saturday. However, such is the club-like cohesion within the squad, and so interchangeable are the pair, it wouldn't necessarily make a huge difference either way.