Enough Mr Nice guy, Eddie

WHAT the hell is going on with the Irish rugby team? Backwards we’re going, not forward, and I’m very much afraid the blame has to be laid squarely on the shoulders of Eddie O’Sullivan.

Let me make it clear from the outset here, this is not a personal attack on Eddie.

I’ve met the man on several occasions: he’s decent, straight, probably the most dedicated and hardest-working team manager in sport. None of the above, however, means that he’s above criticism, and boy, how he deserves to be criticised.

The basic questions are:

1) Going back to the summer tour of Japan, why didn’t Eddie (in New Zealand at the time with the Lions, but be under no illusions about who was making the big calls) rest Peter Stringer - whose potential he knew well - and give game time at scrum-half to a few new kids?

2) Why did he not experiment in the two recent big games, against New Zealand and Australia? If he was going to ditch Anthony Foley at number 8, why didn’t he bring in David Heaslip of Leinster, an outstanding prospect in that position, and leave Denis Leamy on the blind side, where he was brilliant for Munster against Castres in the recent Heineken Cup game?

Why did he go with Shane Byrne at hooker, when the guy isn’t getting any real game-time with Saracens and will be well into veteran stage by the next World Cup? Why did he go with Malcolm O’Kelly, patently not match-fit? Why did he not go with the youngsters, Neil Best of Ulster, Jerry Flannery of Munster (man-of-the-match in that Castres game), Bob Casey of London-Irish, the guys in form?

3) On that point, why does he continue to ignore proven talent, the likes of Casey, the giant second-row, generally regarded as one of the best in the game across the pond, the likes of Trevor Brennan with Toulouse, or David Wallace, closer to home?

4) Why is he so slow to give youth its fling? Andrew Trimble against Australia was the exception, rather than the rule. Why is he so reluctant to do what New Zealand, Australia, France, England all do: throw the youngsters with talent in at the deep end, and see if they can swim? And by the way Eddie, contrary to a recent statement of yours, Andrew did NOT slip in under the radar; anyone who knew anything about Irish rugby was aware of his fast-coming talent.

5) Why was there only one change from the side walloped by New Zealand, for the Australia game? Winning challenge games, even games as big as those two, should not be what it’s about, with a World Cup around the corner. Those two matches should have been about building for France 2007. They were a perfect opportunity in fact. Opportunity lost even more emphatically than the two games themselves.

6) Why does he persist in trying to play a text-book, copy-book, structured, chalkboard, coach’s game? Rugby isn’t American Football; it can’t be played from the sideline. Defence, yes, must be absolutely organised, pre-planned, everyone on the same page. But offence, ball in hand? Give these guys their head, let them play.

Last season, Peter Stringer’s game went to pot because, distracted by the whole Lions business, he tried to do things that are not in his nature, and suffered the horrors. This season, with Ireland, it looks like the same thing is going to happen to Ronan O’Gara and to Geordan Murphy, two immensely-talented rugby-players who know, instinctively, the right thing to do in almost every situation. Leave them alone, let them play; ball in hand, allow them to make their own decisions.

I could go on, but there are only so many inches in this column. Eddie is a rugby man to his fingertips, more educated in this game than I will ever be, but he IS making blunders, major blunders. The ill-advised passing game against New Zealand is a case in point, especially in the first-half, with a wind behind Ireland. He’s got to lighten up, loosen up, start trusting youth, start trusting his players.

The biggest thing he’s got to do, though, and the first thing he’s got to do, is stop talking down his players, his team, his pool of talent: Irish rugby. Above anyone else, the coach has got to believe; he sets the tone for everyone else, he sets the target.

If Eddie doesn’t believe the resources are there for Ireland to compete with the best, then get out, and allow someone into the job who does. Either way, enough of the negativity. We’ve gone back far enough.