RUGBY: Ireland look like they will have to survive, for the time being at any rate, without the midfield pairing that was set to provide much of the spark for their RBS Six Nations campaign as Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy both seem set to be ruled out of Ireland's second Championship encounter, against Scotland in Murrayfield next Saturday.
Each of them sustained hamstring injuries during the course of Ireland's decidedly awkward, and often punishing, opening 28-17 win over Italy in the Stadio Flaminio yesterday. As is the way of these things, the full extent of the damage won't be known until further examination today but even if they were mere strains, injured hamstrings are notoriously slow healers.
Both of Ireland's dynamic midfield ball carriers are susceptible to these types of injuries. O'Driscoll was caught in the bottom of the ruck and "did the splits". He was carried off in the ninth minute of injury-time as Leandro Castrogiovanni was scoring Italy's consolation try.
"Both have hamstring injuries," confirmed O'Sullivan. "Gordon pulled up at full tilt, which doesn't look good and Brian was caught in a ruck and did the splits. He was tired as well. We're not quite sure how bad they are and we'll probably know more in the morning. But both centres have hamstring injuries."
Of all the Irish players you wanted to get through yesterday's encounter, D'Arcy would have been uppermost amongst them. He is having a cruel run, yesterday constituting only his sixth start of an injury-bedevilled season. He pulled up barely half an hour into yesterday's game in a manner which clearly concerned O'Sullivan and coupled with his groin injuries strongly suggests that he has developed chronic, lower back-related problems.
O'Sullivan's temporary options are not plentiful. Shane Horgan, one of Ireland's most effective performers, could return to the midfield again, as he did to excellent effect in the autumn wins over South Africa and Argentina, and the likeliest combination would be with Kevin Maggs given he has been playing at outside centre for Ulster this season and was the back who just missed the 22-man cut for Rome.
Another who could come into the reckoning would be Shaun Payne, who has played both at outside centre and wing for Munster, as might Ulster's Tommy Bowe, capped in the autumn win over the USA Eagles.
Although Paddy O'Brien got the bird a few times, the Stadio Flaminio makes for a relatively polite venue and although Italy's rugged, well-drilled pack kept the match in the balance beyond the hour mark, in truth the Irish contingent of 8,000 never doubted that Ireland's finishing ability out wide would pull them through.
But this double whammy undoubtedly put a dampener on what was a hard-earned victory and as a pure rugby contest, especially to those watching back home, it must been a largely underwhelming experience, although the one consolation is that no team looked exceptional over the weekend.
Throughout, Ireland always had a vastly sharper cutting edge, but such was the sluggishness of their presence at the breakdown and their recycling, their game was almost devoid of any continuity. In truth, the back row were hardly seen in this regard.
By contrast, the Italian trio of Aaron Persico, Sergio Parisse and Mauro Bergamasco roamed freely and continually made their presence felt at the breakdown, especially the omnipresent Persico, often slowing down Ireland's ball or even stealing it.
The net result was that for all the potent running of O'Driscoll, Horgan and Geordan Murphy, Ireland almost had to score every time they ran the ball wide through the backs or else turned the ball over. "You always want to play your best game in a Test match arena but we struggled to impose ourselves on the game and especially at the breakdown area," admitted a frustrated Anthony Foley. "We seemed to get penalised quite a lot there or else turned the ball over, so it is an area we will have to address."
"We struggled at the breakdown," agreed O'Sullivan, "and we often had to contend with slow ball. I thought both sides struggled for continuity as we turned over some of their ball and they turned over ours. The breakdown area is becoming the key area of the contests, and because of the new interpretation some players are afraid of doing anything. They're walking on eggshells, but it's an area of concern and slow ball doesn't suit us. It doesn't suit any team."
Although Denis Leamy is a much better player than he showed yesterday, the case for recalling a breakdown specialist such as Johnny O'Connor will have grown as a result of the opening jousts. Irish players were in agreement that the new IRB diktat regarding the breakdown, whereby the ball carrier will be penalised for adjusting their bodies after hitting the ground, didn't make much difference to the penalty counts, but it did have an effect on the tackle area in so much as players were letting go of the ball more quickly, and hence there was more of a contest for the ball.
"I'm very pleased to have won the game first and foremost," maintained O'Sullivan. "You have to give credit to Italy. They dominated possession in the first half. We had only three attacking opportunities in the first half but we scored off two of them. We didn't clear our lines very well but in the second half we played more possession rugby. We knew it would take 70 minutes to wear down this Italian side and that's the way it panned out."
John Kirwan was delighted with the effort of his team in playing at Ireland's level for the duration of the match and reasserted his pre-match view that Ireland can win the championship.
