Ireland get lost in a litany of errors

No moral victory, no learning curve, no simpering patter, no delusions of adequacy: Brian Ashton was not prepared to spare the rod for his errant charges. On a couple of occasions the ire, or maybe incredulity, that he must have felt, surfaced as he struggled to explain away another defeat.

This was not Italy, where the Irish coach preferred to dwell on the positives that emerged from the performance, this was Scotland at Lansdowne Road, an international where Ireland had carelessly flung away victory.

Ashton honestly appraised his team's display admitting: "We made an unacceptable number of unforced errors technically in the first half and in the last 20 minutes of the game we were penalised at the end of about half-adozen scrums on their line. We needed to score and didn't.

"It is ironic that we scrummaged exceptionally well but got penalised in two scrums, one that cost us territory and the other that has probably cost us the game at the end of the day. We lost our way tactically in the last 20 minutes, we shut up shop. The Scots realised this and stepped up a gear. We then kicked away possession for that last 20 minutes. I find it quite remarkable really."

Ashton might have added how individuals can be so stupid but he probably believed that would indict too many of the team. It was easy to understand his frustration: the team had prepared excellently, a point made emphatically by Irish captain Keith Wood, yet players somehow contrived to cock-up with ridiculous regularity.

Ashton briefly succumbed to the silver lining theory on a Saturday that was particularly cloudy claiming: "There were occasions when our backplay looked a lot sharper. Four times we got outside the Scottish backs which is not easy in international rugby. The lineout was also a little better today than against the Italians."

But the coach's pragmatism was soon restored: "It does not matter how well we scrummage, how well we compete in the lineout, how well we run the backs, if we make the errors that we made. At the end of the day that will stop any continuity in our game. We did not put the points on the board that we ought to have done.

"I know that we have started (the Five Nations Championship) badly because we lost a game we should have won, lost to a side who, on the day, I felt did not play as well as we did and yet they won the match and in anybody's language that is a disaster.

"The errors that we made are inexplicable in the sense that later on in the same game, the players that made those errors were going through the same situations without any problems."

Wood, quietly sipping on a bottle of water, was measured in his responses but could not disguise his dejection. "I'm gutted. I suppose you would think that we would be used to defeat now since we seem to lose far more often than we win. But you can't get used to it, it's bloody awful.

"It's about execution. We have to execute things properly and unfortunately we did not. People talk about trying to play clinically, but playing clinically is just playing simply, putting the ball in the right place all the time. Unfortunately we didn't.

"One has to look at one's own performance and that applies to each individual: look at the things that you did well and carry those into the next game and the mistakes that are made, make certain that you don't do it again.

"I am really, really upset over today." No one will question Wood's honesty nor for that matter that all those who pulled on a green jersey are not sick to the pit of their respective stomachs but their reaction is of more concern.

Ashton is unequivocal about what is required: "It's not about biting the bullet. It is a question of knuckling down. It is about going through the game with the players and saying that these are the mistakes that we made and these are unacceptable at international level, so start working on doing something about it."

The Irish coach will lay down the gauntlet and the players will be made aware, again, that internationals are not the arena for kindergarten mistakes. If Ashton had any doubts about the magnitude of the task ahead, Saturday at Lansdowne Road will have rectified that discrepancy.

The real problem for Irish rugby though, will be that should those doubts fester before finally exploding in Paris, then Ashton won't be around to pick up the debris.