THE LINEOUT CRISIS: Ireland's victory on Saturday came despite another disappointing performance from touch. Gerry Thornley looks at a worrying trend

The dressing-room mood was one of relief, no more. The team were back on track, but both the game and the Irish performance had been too patchy to justify any sense of elation.

They would all have been eminently mindful that the lineout has become something of an Achilles heel now after misfiring two games in a row. Not only did Ireland lose six balls on their own throw, they also lost possession from a couple of drives - their only viable option, as attacking ball off the top was denied them.

Coupled with Scotland's spoiling tactics, it meant Ireland had no platform to get their patterns going, and to a large degree they foraged off scraps on Saturday. As an assistant/forwards coach, Niall O'Donovan felt more responsible than anyone for the lineout failings.

"Overall, it was a great performance but personally I would be disappointed with the lineouts again. We struggled there, the scrum held up reasonably well. The forwards in general played well but whether the lineouts have become a bit of a mental thing with us, I don't know, because we had the same problems with Shane (Byrne) throwing in as we did with Frankie (Sheahan).

"We just have to look and see if we're concentrating too much on it. We spent a lot of time on it this week. All the signs at the start of the week were that it was fine, working well in training, but it didn't really fire today," said O'Donovan.

"They (the Scots) have a good lineout but we would expect our own to function better than that. I can put my finger on it but I'd prefer to discuss it with the players first," said O'Donovan, who obviously knows more than he'll let on in public, although to some degree he must be as mystified as the rest of us.

The Munster lineout has consistently been a rich source of attacking ball, while they made inroads into the opposition throw before it became fashionable to do so. And Ireland effectively field the Munster lineout, with the addition of the primary ball-winner Malcolm O'Kelly.

In the opinion of some experts, such as Philip Matthews, it's the lack of movement in the Irish lineout which is failing to free up its jumpers and is making them easier targets for opponents.

"Whatever about movement, it's the speed we're actually doing things at," said O'Donovan.

"We can actually get into the lineout and get up off the ground fast, but when you look at all the different aspects, a lot of the throws were right today but the people on the ground weren't reacting as they should. The hookers will take a lot of blame for today, but a lot of it would be wrong."

He added: "It's disappointing to go through a match like that and lose so much basic possession really. It fired well against Wales and it seems to be a confidence thing at the moment, not just with the hookers, but with everybody. It's got to the stage where they've worked so hard at it that maybe it's a mental block at this stage."

Even the crowd are becoming part of the old subplot, inclined as they were on occasions to ironic cheers when Ireland actually claimed their own throws. "And they'll read it in the papers again and they'll be further back again. But the problem wasn't all down to the hookers."

It was a tough call on Sheahan to be substituted five minutes before the break, for there's a stigma attached to being taken off before half-time which doesn't apply to being replaced during the interval.

"He handled it okay because basically he had to get back on the bench, as he would have been called back on if he (Byrne) had been injured," said O'Donovan. "So he had to get his head around that as well.

"What can you say? We've to break it down again and we've to start from scratch again and try to make it better."

Denied the modern-day staple diet of lineout ball, Ireland had to fall back on other virtues. When Mick Galwey wheeled his daughter in a buggy on the short trek from the West Stand car park to the Berkeley Court Hotel in the descending darkness on Saturday evening and reflected on the key to Ireland's win, he had little hesitation in nominating his team's defence.

"We worked on our defence. It was just our attitude. In England, for some reason, it didn't work out. We were quiet. Today we were vocal."

The individual and collective pressure they all spoke about afterwards emanated from the English game. "In times past you'd have been waiting for a phone call," said Galwey, who's been dropped 14 times.

"This time they kept faith in us. It was great, but as players we knew we had to perform. The management didn't say anything, but they didn't have to. You only get one second chance, as the fella says."