Irish team must ‘try’ harder to fulfil its destiny

THE tremendous victory of the Irish rugby team over Tri-Nations champions Australia, which united the nation (north and south), gives us all hope that this group of players (including the veteran O’Driscoll) can now push on to fulfil their destiny by lifting the William Webb Ellis Cup.

While last weekend’s victory was achieved through mental focus and sustained physical intensity, the one drawback for me was that Ireland failed to breach the Wallabies’ tryline.

Despite our dominance at the breakdown, in the set-piece and in defence, we failed to take full advantage of our superiority by scoring tries.

This is an important point because when we progress through the tournament, and face other strong sides such as England and New Zealand in the semi-final and final (I confidently predict), we will need to have developed an ability to score seven-pointers.

We must not fall into the trap of thinking that what we produced against Australia will be enough to lift the cup, especially now that everybody else has seen what we can do. For this team to fulfil its destiny, and bring lasting joy to the nation, we will have to reproduce all the qualities that we showed against Australia and add to these the all-important ability to score tries when it matters.

John B Reid

Knapton Road

Monkstown

Co Dublin