There was just a little queasiness around the place at half-time here, the faintest tick-tock of discomfort at the tries Ireland hadn't scored. They had at least four good chances – five at a stretch – and though nobody really thought it was going to be one of those days, nobody knew for certain that it wasn't.
All of which bought Dave Kilcoyne's try two minutes after the break a ferocious welcome. The Munster prop was winning his 12th cap and scoring his first try in green. He said afterwards that the game panned out more or less as he and the Ireland team thought it might.
“We looked at a lot of their games beforehand and it takes most teams 50-60 minutes to break them down. They’re very physical, especially in their maul, their maul defence, their scrum and the breakdown. But our fitness told in the end.
“It’s a Test match at home in the Aviva. You’re talking about a team there that has some Top 14 lads in the pack. As I say, it was always going to take a bit of time. They’re no pushovers. If you look at any game they had against Tier One nations, they’re always right in there at the end of 40-50 minutes and after that you have to back your fitness.”
Kilcoyne was making just his third international start and his first in Dublin. Though the likelihood remains high that Jack McGrath will come back in next for the game against Australia, Kilcoyne did himself no harm yesterday. He made more yards in the loose than anyone else in the pack and the scrum was solid throughout. As the Georgia coach Milton Haig pointed out afterwards, it had every right to be – the Irish management was hunting for scrum footage of the Georgians as far back as six months ago.
“It’s about getting an opportunity and then making sure you’re as well prepared as possible to take that opportunity on the day,” said Kilcoyne. “It’s a different fixture to South Africa obviously. They’re a Tier Two nation. But we always knew it was going to be an incredibly physical game. We prepared just as much as we did for the South Africa game and I’m sure we’ll do that same for Australia.
Homework
“You do your homework, you know your role and you come in and you try to make the job of the fella beside you easier. That’s the goal, to make life as easy as possible for the guy next to you.”
Craig Gilroy didn't manage to get over for a try of his own but he got through some clever work and started the move that led to Stuart Olding's try late on. He got out into open country regularly enough but it will be the down and dirty work that will have impressed his coach the most. "To be honest, I wish I got my hands on the ball a little bit more but it's not all glamour," he said.
“Sometimes you have to roll the sleeves up and do the hard work. That’s what Joe looked for from me throughout the training weeks – just really chasing ball and making tackles.
“It was just really off the cuff, I saw a bit of space in behind and went after it. That was the detail we talked about before. Once I get to where the ball is, once they gather it, you have to make the follow-up tackle. I put him into touch and that set up a good platform for us. We had another good launch for Stuart Olding to go through, and that’s where he scored, under the sticks.”
Walking the line
Tommy Bowe
will come back into the team against Australia, leaving the other wing a straight shoot-out between Gilroy and
Simon Zebo
. This had the feel of a trial game for them both, two players walking the line between impressing their coach and trying to do too much. Like Kilcoyne, he fell back on the team mantra.
“You want to put your hand up and show what you can do, but at the same time Joe is very team-orientated and you need to play in a way that helps the guy beside you. It is important to get that happy medium right and like I said, I wish I got my hands a bit more on the ball. But I think in terms of a team effort, I really tried to do what was best for the team.”
