Ireland's gazelle leaps into the spotlight

There weren't many crumbs of comfort but amid the slim pickings Dion O'Cuinneagain's performance was a minor feast. There can have been few such exciting and eye-catching displays by an Irish back-row forward in the '90s. If Rob Henderson was, as Bill McLaren memorably proclaimed, "like a buffalo on the stampede", O'Cuinneagain was like a gazelle.

"You should play him at outside centre," ventured one English scribe in the press box, and right on cue the back-row exchanged places with some of the midfield at an Irish line-out, whereupon O'Cuinneagain looped around Andy Ward and had another of his galloping cuts at the Scots.

O'Cuinneagain was pretty handy at the flanker stuff as well, making his tackles around the fringes and frequently first in support to the tackled Irish ball-carrier. At restarts, he was a flying lock, leaving his fellow forwards in his slipstream. Inspired by his first minute dummy to Cameron Murray, his swerve and acceleration away from the despairing Scott Murray and chip ahead for the Irish try, his subsequent counter-attack on the switch with Conor O'Shea would have done a winger proud.

He also hoovered up with a couple of covering try-saving tackles in the second-half on Alan Tait and Eric Peters. He couldn't possibly sustain such a tempo, though a torn hamstring in the last 15 minutes was a mitigating factor.

Despite his own immense efforts, the approachable and friendly Cape Town son of an Irish doctor was even more softly-spoken than usual afterwards; giving his modest, quiet views on the game through a busted, swollen lip and an overwhelming mood of despondency.

His performance on Saturday was the reaction Warren Gatland had been looking for from many of the under-performers in the English match. "I was very disappointed with my personal performance against England. This was a game I really wanted to perform in. I thought I let myself and the team down (against England). I just wanted to get out there and perform well today."

As for a self-assessment, O'Cuinneagain said: "It went well but at the same time I thought my French performance was a more solid performance. I made one or two errors today. I turned over one ball and missed a tackle, whereas I felt in the French game I had a better game."

Nonetheless, Saturday's performance was the 26-year-old's most dynamic for his adopted country. Embarrassed by some of the praise that came his way, O'Cuinneagain smiled and said: "I certainly had a more showy game than the French game."

"Turnovers," he ruefully cited as the reasons for the defeat, while, remarkably, he also rued much of his own contribution. The failure to finish off his burst off O'Shea's switch pass he regarded as a "lost opportunity" and the turnover from a restart which led to Scotland's killer try on the hour. "I caught the ball and then I just got flipped and they just ripped it off me.

"We would have achieved our goal if we'd won this game but at the same time I think we've made leaps and bounds from the side that played in last year's Five Nations. We've Italy to come and it's now even more vital that we beat them. Then we go to Australia, which is vital for our World Cup prep, and if you look at our pool we can get through to the last eight and then anything can happen."