Last-ditch kick adds to the drama

RUGBY:LIKE TWO dramas running simultaneously, it was difficult after an uncompelling Ireland performance to judge which one was the most intriguing.

The choice; an Ireland team falling to their sixth successive defeat and a lurid autopsy, or, the 100th cap of the cherub in the twilight of his career, Ronan O’Gara, almost snatching something from a match the South Africans believed they had put to bed long before he came out to play.

In a subplot, where the narrative almost cast O’Gara in a Boys Own role for the last 20 minutes, his final conversion that hit the post for a possible draw might have been far too melodramatic for any credible script writer.

But Ireland coach Declan Kidney will take many things back to the team hotel in Killiney and while it was easy from the stands to determine the black hat villains and the white hat good guys, as substitutes, O’Gara, Peter Stringer and Donnacha Ryan visibly lifted the tempo for the close. Kidney, though, knows it is never black and white.

O’Gara triggered a try with his cross kick to Tommy Bowe and almost levelled with a conversion two metres from the right touch line. Not a bad contribution for a cameo. But his cheeky arrogance has always been irrepressible and that he would always back himself before anyone else is a reason to shout his cause. O’Gara is a wonderful mix of team ethic, self- interest and tactical acuity.

“I think it’s easy being an expert and sitting on the sideline,” he says. “It’s very tough for boys out there. I’ve been there before. Coming off the bench, sometimes your impact can be overemphasised and that probably happened today. It just felt like there was probably an intensity missing and I felt probably Strings (Peter Stringer) and myself and Donnacha Ryan . . . you just have to add to it and give it a lift.

“I think you are going to get that with Strings, to be fair. He’s going to whip the outhalf every time. He’s just an underestimated, underappreciated brain. He directs the forwards very well and I think that may have been missing, a small bit of experience.”

His conversion for Kearney’s try had just a squirt of adrenalin too much for success. Pushing for the match and having just engineered that scene-stealing (O’Gara is too astute to underestimate the importance of his cross-field nudge) kick to the right for Bowe, it was a sweet boot and on line for much of the arc but a little to much.

“I was so pumped there was probably a small bit of draw on the ball,” he says. “It rattled off the post as opposed to hitting the post. That just shows how pumped up you are. The ball didn’t move. It was a true kick and that’s all I can ask for. Sometimes they scrape in

. . . sometimes they go wide . . . today it hit they f****** post. I hit it well, yeah, but that doesn’t matter it didn’t go over the bar.”

O’Gara doesn’t dilute his opinions and gives answers rather than replies. But he can skirt a point or skilfully air an idea when he wishes. He is loyal to the team but too senior not to speak his mind and his view is Ireland did not deserve to share anything on the day.

“I don’t think so, I think the better team won,” he says. “We’re disappointed. You can’t be losing games like that at home if we are to be credible so I think we need to look at ourselves now and there are an important few weeks coming up.”

There was fire in other players’ hearts. Donncha O’Callaghan has a black bruise under an eye and seems like a frustrated bundle of energy, still fulminating two hours after the match. At the heart of it he’s talking about a lost opportunity.

“To be honest, I spent half the game with my head between asses pushing and dragging so I’ll have to look,” he says about his own contribution. “I know from the players we definitely want to get better, definitely want to improve.

“In the first half I don’t think we made them hurt, made them pay. That’s the frustrating thing. We did near the end of the game. They were down on their haunches. They were skulking a bit. We needed to push that on there earlier.”

O’Callaghan is a tangle of mischief and self-deprecation. His natural instinct is to frame his team -mates in rugby love and rugby respect and leave himself with his head inevitably ‘between asses’. But O’Gara the catalyst sparked a flame in him on Saturday.

“I’ve two European Cup medals and a Grand Slam in my back pocket from the hard work he’s done,” said the secondrow in homage. “I definitely appreciate everything he’s done for me and f*** it, he’s had his 100th cap off the bench . . . I think it’s just a bit harsh. But then he just shows the class of himself. He stands up when the team needs him. He always does.”