SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP Ireland 14 England 13: ANYONE EXPECTING a beauty contest would have been disappointed, but they would have been misguided in the first place. This was always likely to be an arm-wrestle.
As World Cup opponents can testify, not to mention Wales a fortnight ago, it’s the way of things when England take to a rugby pitch, so Ireland can take plenty of satisfaction in taking them on and outmuscling them.
England came to Dublin to play Cup rugby and Ireland responded in kind. The lines in the sand were drawn, and so intent were both sides on playing territory and building a lead it became a bit like chess.
Ireland did enough to achieve the first part of the game plan except, alas, on the scoreboard, as Ronan O’Gara’s missed brace of first-half penalties prevented them from building a 9-0 lead.
Instead, they turned around at 3-3, and were making little impression on England’s well-drilled defence. Joe Worsley was put in at outhalf on Irish scrum ball, with Toby Flood packing down at flanker, to cut down Jamie Heaslip’s surges. And England’s destroyer-in-white helped flood the midfield, where too much of the onus was placed on Brian O’Driscoll. And, dance as he might, even a vintage O’Driscoll couldn’t find space.
When O’Gara’s radar went awry again, Ireland took to a different route. They had arguably tried to make too many passes and then – as Declan Kidney and the coaches pointed out at half-time – when within 30 metres of the English line, had wrongly gambled on grubbers three times.
So they rolled up their sleeves, took England on closer in, and kept the ball in a Munsteresque change of tack. Rarely has a team worked as hard for a 11-3 lead, courtesy of a sweetly struck drop goal and a close-range rumble by the majestic O’Driscoll.
But, as much as anything, this decisive third quarter, and the performance overall, was testimony to the improved cohesion of the pack under Gert Smal’s direction.
O’Driscoll was still feeling the effects of Riki Flutey’s shoulder charge into his jaw and Delon Armitage’s late block when his lieutenants opted to go for the corner. Had John Hayes not stumbled from Paul O’Connell’s feed he might well have scored from a smartly worked move. That’s quite a testimony to their collective confidence in that machine.
As it was, three times they went to the corner, and when Phil Vickery was binned for slowing the ball down they cleverly opted for a scrum to force England to withdraw James Haskell.
It was then O’Driscoll muscled over.
O’Gara missed the conversion. Had he taken his kicks, Ireland would have been 22-3 up. Not only would we be viewing this performance a whole lot differently, but Ireland would probably have gone on to win comfortably.
In any event, they were given another leg-up by the kind of crass ill-discipline that blights England’s efforts when Danny Care lined up Marcus Horan and cynically blindsided him.
O’Gara had the courage to nail the match-sealing penalty.
Those who live by the sword. Though Toby Flood and, to his credit, Andy Goode, put some attacking shape on their game, with Flood even working a rare line-break by Mathew Tait in the game’s best setpiece move, England are a negative, spoiling team.
There could have been more yellow cards; cynical blocking, slowing down ball and focusing on stopping the opposition seem part of their DNA. You wouldn’t like to watch them every week. They are like a better-paid Italy.
The importance of that score was underlined when Goode worked a line-break and then had the vision to grubber kick through for Delon Armitage to outrun Horan and make the last minutes a good deal more fraught than they ought to have been.
That try brought to mind the Maxime Medard try in the same corner against France, when the French winger was in a footrace with Rory Best to score easily from a Lionel Beauxis kick. The common denominator both times was that Luke Fitzgerald vacated his berth to join a ruck that he had no business joining.
He’s a great talent, and it’s all in Fitzgerald’s praiseworthy work ethic, which, along with his tackling, have been exemplary. And though he was living off scraps, his line onto Tommy Bowe’s arcing run infield and typical awareness briefly hinted at the try of the season.
But this defensive glitch is something that Les Kiss will seek to iron out between now and Murrayfield. Winning a war doesn’t mean you have to die for your country.
Another marked difference is the more aggressive and, hence, offensive defence. Whereas before it was a defence that strove to keep its shape and absorb pressure, Ireland have upped their line speed in more of an “outside-in” banana shape and have entrusted big hitters such as Stephen Ferris, O’Driscoll and Bowe to leave the line and take out ball-carriers.
It trusts players to make decisions and it’s more of a risk, but it’s also forcing more turnovers and there were several examples of that here.
On the negative side, O’Gara’s kicking and game have become an issue, while Ireland still need to up their offload tally, to generate quicker ruck ball and to create more one-on-ones out wide.
Tomás O’Leary played well and his box-kicks were much better, but Peter Stringer again upped the tempo. And there seemed a case for introducing Gordon D’Arcy, but O’Driscoll’s battle scars probably prevented that.
He’ll have ached yesterday, but would have felt a good deal worse if Ireland had contrived to lose.
Fortunately, the Irish camp had braced themselves for what to expect from the Red Rose. All part of the Six Nations’ rich tapestry.
Sometimes you have to win ugly.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 30 mins: O'Gara pen 3-0; 39: Flood pen 3-3; (half-time 3-3); 45: O'Driscoll drop goal 6-3; 57: O'Driscoll try 11-3; 66: Armitage pen 11-6; 71: O'Gara pen 14-6; 79: Armitage try, Goode con 14-13.
IRELAND: R Kearney (Leinster); T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, cap), P Wallace (Ulster), L Fitzgerald (Leinster); R O'Gara (Munster), T O'Leary (Munster); M Horan (Munster), J Flannery (Munster), J Hayes (Munster), D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: P Stringer (Munster) for O'Leary (66 mins), R Best (Ulster) for Flannery, D Leamy (Munster) for Heaslip (both 69 mins). Not used: T Court (Ulster), M O'Driscoll (Munster), G D'Arcy (Leinster), G Murphy (Leicester Tigers).
ENGLAND: D Armitage (London Irish); P Sackey (Wasps), M Tindall (Gloucester), R Flutey (Wasps), M Cueto (Sale); T Flood (Leicester), H Ellis (Leicester); A Sheridan (Sale), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (London Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), N Kennedy (London Irish), J Haskell (Wasps), J Worsley (Wasps), N Easter (Harlequins). Replacements: J White (Leicester) for Haskell (58-66 mins, for Sheridan 76 mins), D Care (Harlequins) for Ellis (57 mins), M Tait (Sale) for Sackey (58 mins), D Hartley (Northampton) for Mears, A Goode (AC Brive) for Flood (both 66 mins), T Croft (Leicester) for Kennedy (69 mins), L Narraway (Gloucester) for Easter (76 mins). Sinbinned: Vickery (56-66 mins), Care (70-80 mins).
Referee: Craig Joubert(South Africa).
