RUGBY/ SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP: YOU ALWAYS sensed it would come down to this. The last game of the championship, at 5.30pm in the Millennium Stadium next Saturday, will pretty much see the whole shooting gallery up for grabs. It can be said now. The Grand Slam is on the table.
For Ireland it is a tilt at only their second in history and the first in 61 years, but it comes against the 10-time and reigning Grand Slam champions, who still have their Six Nations title and the Triple Crown to defend, and in their 72,500-capacity ground.
Oh yeah, there’s maybe a few Lions spots up for grabs, and the captaincy as well.
You’d imagine they’ll be up for it too, then, probably more so than in any game in this championship to date. Presumably Warren Gatland will pick his first-choice team.
The rest are now also-rans after France’s challenge faded meekly in an abysmal, embarrassing performance yesterday at Twickenham, where they were routed 34-10 by England. Only Wales can therefore deny Ireland a first title since 1985, but to do so the Red Dragonhood must win next Saturday by at least 13 points.
Gatland and the Welsh management must now be wondering if they made the right call in tinkering so much with their team against Italy, for the permutations now raise the possibility that Saturday’s winners will have the booby prize of a Crown and the losers will be presented with the trophy. Remember England’s hollow ceremony after being beaten in Dublin in 2001?
No, Ireland will want the whole booty and nothing but the whole booty now. They’ve earned themselves this shot at immortality.
A 61-year hiatus is a rather long one, but as for the accompanying hype, Ireland coach Declan Kidney said: “That’s just what it is. It’s the same group of players for the last number of years. They have given huge service to Ireland. I have no doubt that we’ll go out and give it a go, whether that will be good enough or not . . . But I think that the genuine sports person, that’s what they’ll ask of the team and that’s what we’ll ask of ourselves, and if that’s good enough it’s good enough, and if it’s not we shouldn’t cry over spilt milk. We’ve managed to give ourselves a chance, that’s all.”
Nor was he inclined to shield the players from the country’s craving for some good news. “I wouldn’t do that, this is a week to be enjoyed, and if you don’t enjoy weeks like this you’ll never enjoy it.”
Once again Ireland’s 22-15 win over Scotland on Saturday was no beauty contest, but instead another arm wrestle, and referee Jonathan Kaplan was centre stage for far too much of it. Memo to IRB: punters don’t shell out wanga to watch a pedantic lesson in the laws of the game.
The huge Green Army can’t have especially enjoyed it, but, having made the effort and incurred the cost of travelling to Murrayfield from whatever direction, they made sure they were going to enjoy themselves. Hence, they wore more green and sang louder than the home crowd, especially in the second half.
Half-time, Kidney admitted, “came at a good time for us” after the try-saving tackles by Tommy Bowe and Brian O’Driscoll which prevented the Scots going into the break 10 points up and with their tails up. Championship minutes, and championship moments perhaps?
Kidney also reminded us of the late, first-half penalty try by the All Blacks which killed off Ireland’s challenge last November.
“It was pretty calm,” Kidney said of the dressingroom at the interval. “They come in and sit down, we have a cup of tea and then we try and get a few messages across. There’s no point ranting and raving, they’re pros. You try and make your points and the boys take them on board.
“But is it what you say or is it just that we played a bit smarter? I think it’s a whole host of things, so it’s not about trying to grab a bit of limelight by claiming it was anything that was said.”
Smarter and, as they discussed, with much more intensity, as they retained the ball better and put some pace on it. There were, for the fourth time running, big games by the team’s leading men – O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell – while Ronan O’Gara came through strongly in the second half, and his 17-point haul meant he overtook Jonny Wilkinson as the championship’s all-time leading points scorer and Michael Lynagh as the fifth-highest points scorer in Test rugby on 912.
The sight of the immense Stephen Ferris pumping his legs late in the game when, by rights, he should have been waning, is typical of the way this team gradually works its way to the winning line, work ethic being the team’s byword. They are a Munsteresque, pragmatic side. Winning comes before artistic impression. Less can be more. Whatever it takes.
Last Saturday had strong echoes of the way they outmuscled England, right down to the time of the breakthrough try at the end of the third quarter.
But they might well need something more than that in the Cardiff shoot-out, and like all the best shoot-outs neither would have been terribly surprised that it is the other who stands in their way this weekend, although Kidney didn’t expect Ireland to be four wins from four at this juncture.
“Because I thought the confidence of the team in November wasn’t great. And we’ve talked about the bit of honesty at Christmas. We got a bit of go against France. Eddie (O’Sullivan) was always talking about a bit of momentum; that seems to be backing us up.
“But there’s handier ones than having to go to Cardiff and beat Wales,” he said with deliberate understatement. “I’ll be accused of mind games, but they are Grand Slam champions, they’re playing at home, they’re playing for the championship, they’re playing for the Triple Crown and they rested most of their players this week. Anything else?”
Ireland will need to start with greater intensity than they did on Saturday, and will need more tempo, width and ambition.
If they do, then impossible is nothing.
