Irish celebration of the century?
Ireland still have a mathematical chance but a fifth Triple Crown in seven years looks a more achievable target at this stage.
Both of those aspirations would die instantly if Wales spoil the party for Brian O’Driscoll’s 100th Irish cap in the penultimate rugby international at Croke Park. What an unbelievable career he has had as he almost single-handedly drove Ireland on to greater things since the turn of the millennium (check out our sports blog on www.irishexaminer.com/sport/blog)
In the last two rounds of championship fare, Ireland have been involved in two intensely physical confrontations. They have been competitive almost to the point of being reckless, with two contrasting outcomes. When this attitude is epitomised by your captain, best player and a rugby centurion, you have no option but to roll up the sleeves and follow.
The concern and worry for Declan Kidney is how long these players can continue to take the level of pounding they are enduring and come out on the positive side of the ledger.
Watching the players troop off the Stade de France and Twickenham, the overriding feeling was the same – just as well they have two weeks to recover after that.
That has implications for the longer term with the World Cup now coming into focus and several of the team in their 30s.
The one consolation for Saturday is that Wales will rely far more on panache than power to overcome the Irish challenge. Right now Warren Gatland’s men do not have the physical prowess to bludgeon this Irish team. That in itself offers a different type of challenge. If Ireland had to fashion a win in London on a meagre ration of possession then the challenge on Saturday is to retain the clinical edge in attack with potentially twice as much ball as they enjoyed against England.
In a game now dominated by well-marshalled defences, ironically the RBS statistics show that the teams with less possession in the opening three rounds have won most of the games. Gatland has been cursed this season on the injury front with an entire Lions test front row of Gethin Jenkins, Matthew Rees and Adam Jones unable to line out together in any of the seven internationals they have played to date. He had hoped to rectify that against Ireland but Jenkins has failed to recover in time from his latest calf injury. With their captain Ryan Jones also ruled out, Wales are now short four of last summer’s touring Lions forwards as Alun Wyn Jones is also injured and Andy Powell is in exile for this well-publicised golf cart expedition.
As a consequence they have come to grief so far this season in their attempts to beat any of the teams that they would like to think they are closing the gap on – ie, Australia, New Zealand and France. They would have expected to beat England but failed and had the narrowest of escapes against Scotland. Only by beating Ireland on Saturday can they salvage anything meaningful from this year’s championship.
The problem for Wales at the moment is that they are very good when the opposition allows them to play. If they are offered space and a fractured, unstructured game they have an abundance of quality broken field runners who will punish you on the score board. When they are not facilitated in that manner and denied a platform to operate, they look for excuses.
Yet with all their shortcomings in the opening three games of the tournament, they are still joint top try scorers with France on seven even though neither side has faced Italy yet. This Welsh side is unpredictable – and that makes them dangerous. At times in all three games they made a number of line breaks but failed to close the deal because of a failure to off load to supporting players at the vital time. Jamie Roberts and James Hook have been culpable on more than one occasion. Making the line break is the hard part – the danger is they will learn from their mistakes and some team will be punished.
The decision by Declan Kidney to announce an unchanged line up for Saturday was entirely predictable given the enforced alterations he had to make for the opening games due to injury and suspension. By retaining Geordan Murphy at full back in preference to Rob Kearney, he has demonstrated that everyone has to fight to retain the jersey and that performances will also be rewarded.
In all, due to a combination of those injuries and Jerry Flannery’s suspension, 28 players have seen game time in the championship to date and that will extend to 29 if Sean Cronin is introduced on Saturday.
Any bench with the experience of Ronan O’Gara, Leo Cullen, Kearney, Shane Jennings and Eoin Reddan reflects well on the starting XV. That puts Ireland in pole position to rectify the fact that Wales are the only side that Ireland have failed to beat in the Six Nations at Croke Park.
That stat should be redressed before the return to Lansdowne Road.
