Friday, March 19, 2010
BASED on the last two rounds of Six Nations action, the likelihood of Scotland breaching the Irish line on Saturday seems as remote as Ireland’s hopes of claiming successive championships.
Andy Robinson’s men have blown and blown but the house just won’t come down for them, and they sit bottom of the table on a solitary point with just two tries in the for column – both against Wales.
Ireland, however, have been in mean form since shipping three tries to France and have made 208 tackles in 160 minutes of rugby, only conceding one try.
Even then, that solitary effort from English prop Tim Payne’s took two minutes of rewinding and fast-forwarding by the video referee to give a decision.
Be that as it may, Ireland’s defence coach Les Kiss remains wary of the Scottish threat, and he says there is only so much you can read into statistics.
"They’re a team that hasn’t scored much," the Australian said yesterday. "But when you analyse it, they’re a team who will feel they should have scored more. Our challenge is to keep turning up and doing what we’re always doing.
"We know they have a few tricks up their sleeve. We need to be switched on and have the same attitude we’ve had in the last two games when we haven’t had the ball. And that starts from the lineout – we have the best lineout defence in the world probably – right through the defence. Everyone has to be ready for anything.
"They’ve been unlucky to date, I think. I know it’s been well documented. They’re strong around the scrum and the set pieces.
"Their back row are playing very well, they’re in good form but so is ours. It is going to be a great tussle between the back rows. I expect that to be a difference in the game."
As a respected defence coach, Kiss has to analyse all of the stats, but he says they don’t tell the full story, as Ireland have scored six tries in the wins over England and Wales without having the ball for large tracts of the game. If you build stats as an absolute then you can’t win the game if they go against you," he said.
"We’ve discussed tactically the elements of possession and position and getting that balance right. The nature of the game has its part to play in that, the quality of the kicking and chasing, the nature of the game at that moment.
"Are we under pressure or is it in our flow? We try to make the decision that suits the situation that’s there. We’ve discussed that and we want to shift that balance back to parity where its 50-50.
"The last two games, with little possession and opportunity, it has been brilliant attacking rugby to take those opportunities with very little ball. We’re taking that as a positive.
"I think stats have their part. It’s the way you build stats. If you miss more than 10% of your tackles, for example, you can’t hope to win a game.
"It’s been proven wrong all the time. It’s the reality of the numbers in front of you at the time and have you got the wherewithal to handle that. That’s the area where you become a real rugby team, whether you’re defined by what is or whether you’re defined by a number.
"Because the latter is when you can get into trouble. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have won the last two games based purely on numbers.
"The set-piece in our game is of such quality, it puts us on the front foot so much, especially the lineout.
"So we have other weapons for when we don’t have possession to get ourselves back in the game," he said.
"So they’re the things you should be relying on to get back into a game rather than numbers that supposedly say you can’t."
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.