Whelan abandons logic for optimism

PAT WHELAN sat up straight, all buckled and belted up like a three-star general, and spoke without a waver in his voice about the most recent tactical fiasco. Murray Kidd slumped down in his chair like a snowman trying to melt away and Keith Wood, a proud committed Irish captain, became a private who had just emerged from a front-line trench, his 1,000-miles-away stare ample enough evidence of his most recent traumatic sporting experience. After this Italian job, Irish rugby may now need counselling.

Ireland came to Lansdowne Road looking for a win from one of the non-Premiership sides. Just a win. Something to put wind behind the sails and puff up chests. Didn't matter how it came about. Didn't matter what it looked like, whether it was ugly or pretty, miserly or extravagant, just something that would pull them out of the soul-destroying spiral that began with Western Samoa, before taking in Australia.

Italy's modest claim was simply to be recognised as a serious rugby-playing nation - just like Ireland.

"Yes, there is a pattern of defeat now," acknowledged Whelan. "There's no doubt about that. There's definitely a pattern of defeat there that we have to break. It's very demoralising for the younger players and we have a young team. They must get a couple of wins under their belt in order to have the confidence to go out and play. We started well and then went out and gave away a silly score. A lot of that relates back to confidence."

Just where Ireland are to find those couple of wins to accelerate the learning curve was not outlined. But the team have been here before and while Whelan and Kidd understood that their obituaries were being written before they had started their prawn cocktails on Saturday evening, they could see vital life signs where everyone else saw a moribund body.

"You never recover from disasters, but we'll recover from that," said Whelan. The small gathering nodded at his mix of defiance and contrition and simultaneously gathered that if Ireland didn't recover, well, then there'd be nothing really left.

"We've no excuses other than to say that Irish people, and Irish players in general are a resilient bunch and we will pull ourselves together for the French match," Whelan said.

The staggering optimism, rooted in things other than rugby science and Ireland's traditional inability to beat France, was actually the only thing Whelan could offer, as everyone present had seen the match. Then Keith Wood put paid to that vein of positive thinking.

"We didn't play with enough passion and for an Irish side, unless you have passion - for all the training and good you try to do - it comes to nothing if you don't have 100 per cent passion. And we didn't have that today."

In terms of team selection Whelan, Kidd and Wood were in harmony with each other, although not necessarily with anyone else. "I'm not so sure we are faced with a huge problem in terms of team selection. We felt that the team that played today should closely resemble the team to play against France," said the manager.

"We're a very ambitious bunch. And we are a very young side," said Wood. "I don't worry for the future. That team that we have is the bones of the team that's going to be there for years to come. The average age is about 24. You have to get experience. We have experience in losing and now we have to change that around and get experience in winning.

Kidd, coming briefly out of his Inferno meltdown, focused observations on translating what Ireland could do in practice on to the pitch.

"They did penetrate our defence quite comfortably. It's very frustrating in that we knew exactly what they were going to do and they did just that. If we had a problem against Australia it was tackling and we had a problem with that again today.

"I think we went marginally backwards in producing the ruck ball. That's our responsibility, to get that ball quickly, and that really was a vital factor in the game. We've worked very hard on our pattern and it has been going very well in training. Taking it on to the park is the next thing."

Little steps at first.