Fields all choked at end of era

England 33 Ireland 10:EVEN SWING low didn't carry the echoes of past hammerings hereabouts but, as it reverberated around the ground in the 51st minute, the Irish supporters cleared their throats and unleashed the day's one rendition of The Fields. With their team 16-10 adrift, it would prove to be one last, defiant gesture, for thereafter the supporters in green had nothing to sing about.

Not unexpectedly, and partly as a reaction to the frustrating events of a week before, Ireland tried to play a good deal more rugby than they had against Wales, when they had somehow been led into thinking they were an inferior rugby-playing team.

On Saturday, however, they just weren't good enough, or well-enough prepared, to carry it out, and by the end they had actually begun to look a little shambolic.

Ireland reverted from a tight kicking game to a wider passing and running game - as evidenced by official match stats, which showed they kicked only 15 per cent of the time in contrast to 30 per cent against Wales.

They also completed 137 passes and actually made England tackle more often. As ever, the spirit was so willing, but so much blood, sweat, tears and good intentions for so little reward.

In the absence of their most potent ball carriers on previous treks here - Gordon D'Arcy and Brian O'Driscoll - they lacked penetration, especially once Geordan Murphy went off, and it does not help that, once O'Driscoll is ruled out of the equation, the team's offloading is non-existent.

It also looked like a game that would have been far more suited to a team with an out-and-out openside. It wasn't as if they didn't have plenty of ball either. The setpieces went well but they had little or no source of go-forward ball.

No performances quite encapsulated Ireland's display more than those of Ronan O'Gara and Paul O'Connell.

O'Gara's chip-and-gather established a bright, purposeful start, but long before the end he cut a forlorn figure who had run out of options around him and his late fumble, which cost Ireland a probable consolation try, was a barometer of how his and the team's performance sank.

A major, key player in the previous four wins over England but short of match practice here, O'Connell could not be accused of lacking effort or desire. For much of the first 50 or so, he even extracted hard yards when none seemed possible.

Alas, if anything, he tried too hard and in his willingness to take the ball up as first receiver or picking up off the base he was repeatedly left isolated. A rash of turnovers or penalties for not releasing ensued.

But once again you were left wondering why the captain and his chief lieutenant were left carrying so much of a load?

At least O'Connell was often on hand, less so any other member of the tight five. The continuing selection of Simon Easterby on the bench brought inevitable consequences as one of the least heralded but most substantial Ireland careers came to what will probably be a sad finale.

As has been the way of this campaign, the newcomers have played with an enthusiasm the more established players used to have, and Jamie Heaslip at least continued to relish his elevation to the Test environment, putting in a stack of good work, be it ball carries, tackles or clearing out.

Defensively, Ireland looked decidedly wobbly once England began going through the phases. As Graham Steadman conceded a week before, they became a little too narrow.

But even off first phase the makeshift Shane Horgan-Andrew Trimble midfield was porous. They didn't seem sure of whether they were rushing up or pushing up and drifting, and rarely will either of them, or any other Irish midfield pairing, have slipped off so many tackles.

For all their willingness and honesty, Horgan and Trimble wouldn't constitute the most creative, playmaking midfield Ireland have ever put on a pitch.

To compensate for this, the plan - after all these years - was to bring Murphy into play, Horgan stepping in as first receiver so as to use O'Gara's wristy double skip pass in locating the fullback.

The way Murphy ran laterally and initially feinted a switch pass to Kearney effectively took out three defenders quite brilliantly, and the winger's excellent line and strength enabled him to score.

When Iain Balshaw ran back into contact and Rory Best to cough up a three-pointer for not releasing, and Lesley Vainikilo (in only his 14th full match of rugby union) continued to look completely ill-prepared for the Test environment, hope briefly fluttered that if this was to be Eddie O'Sullivan's valedictory game in charge it could at least be celebratory. But that hope gradually evaporated.

There had already been glitches in the Irish defence and also hints of an almost inevitable dream debut for Danny Cipriani. A cocky kid, with the talent to justify it, he could even be seen conducting the team talk in the pre-match huddle

By sheer dint of his pace and running threat, he also created more space for those outside him, and nobody flourished more than a pumped up Jamie Noon, all naked physical aggression and strong running.

Not that England are anything like the finished article, and one suspects there'll be more pain ahead, but they came up with some set moves off the training ground and with a bit more accuracy in their execution might actually have made the scoreboard tick more regularly than they did.

Paul Sackey's levelling try was the product initially of a backline set-piece move that had seen him beat the Irish centres on the wrap-around, before running in unopposed a couple of phases later.

But for last-ditch tackling by Kearney, shooting up to cut off overlaps, and Tommy Bowe and Murphy, England would have pulled clear sooner.

The killer try by Matthew Tait approaching the hour mark had echoes of the try conceded to Shane Williams in the outside-centre channel against Wales seven days before.

Although this time Luke Fitzgerald managed to close down the space by tackling Balshaw, sufficient doubt had been created in Kearney's mind to make him turn around, so by the time the England fullback offloaded to Tait he had little hope of making the tackle.

As the Irish errors mounted and the confidence drained almost visibly from their pores, Cipriani fed Noon on the blind side off a scrum and he took Horgan's tackle to score.

This latest, and probably last, game under O'Sullivan, had strong echoes of the World Cup and one or two performances since, notably a week before, in that once again Ireland started promisingly and executed well to take an early lead before losing their way again.

And once again, long before the end, you just wanted it to end.

SCORING SEQUENCE: 4 mins: Kearney try, O'Gara con 0-7; 7: O'Gara pen 0-10; 12: Cipriani pen 3-10; 19: Sackey try, Cipriani con 10-10; 30: Cipriani pen 13-10; 45: Cipriani pen 16-10; 57: Tait try, Cipriani con 23-10; 69: Noon try, Cipriani con 30-10; 74: Cipriani pen 33-10.

ENGLAND: I Balshaw (Gloucester); P Sackey (Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle), T Flood (Newcastle), L Vainikolo (Gloucester); D Cipriani (Wasps), R Wigglesworth (Sale); A Sheridan (Sale), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (Wasps, capt); S Shaw (Wasps), S Borthwick (Bath); T Croft (Leicester), M Lipman (Bath), N Easter (Harlequins). Replacements: M Tait (Newcastle) for Sackey (48-58 and 65 mins), J Wilkinson (Newcastle) for Flood (53 mins), M Stevens (Bath) for Vickery, B Kay (Leicester) for Shaw (both 61 mins), J Haskell (Wasps) for Lipman (65 mins), P Hodgson (London Irish) for Wigglesworth (75 mins), G Chuter (Leicester) for Mears (76 mins).

IRELAND: G Murphy (Leicester); T Bowe (Ulster), A Trimble (Ulster), S Horgan (Leinster), R Kearney Leinster); R O'Gara (Munster), E Reddan (Wasps); M Horan (Munster), R Best (Ulster), J Hayes (Munster); D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster); D Leamy (Munster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: S Easterby (Llanelli) for Leamy (13 mins), L Fitzgerald (Leinster) for Murphy (35 mins), T Buckley (Munster) for Horan, M O'Driscoll (Munster) for D Wallace (both 67 mins), B Jackman (Leinster) for R Best, P Stringer (Munster) for Reddan (both 71 mins), P Wallace (Ulster) for Horgan (77 mins).

Referee: Stuart Dickinson (Australia).