Rub of the green

NOTHING will convince England that South African referee Jonathan Kaplan didn’t cost them yesterday’s thrilling RBS 6 Nations game at Lansdowne Road.

Of course, Ireland will believe they did enough to edge a contest in which they found themselves on the back foot for much of the game only to produce the all-important scores and tackles at the crucial moments.

There is probably merit in both arguments.

England certainly have a case. Having whistled Munster off the Thomond Park pitch a week previously, the fear was that Kaplan would do the same with Ireland. That was far from the case and even if it is stretching the mark to suggest that he was a “homer”, he did come up with three or four decisions that favoured Ireland. Furthermore, the penalty count wound up at 10-4 in Ireland’s favour although that could also be construed as a tribute to their discipline, given that they were defending for long stretches and made a massive 106 tackles against 45 by England.

Andy Robinson was in foul humour in the aftermath of his side’s third successive Six Nations defeat - and Kaplan was in his line of fire. Robinson deliberated until he had scrutinised the video, before still arriving at the conclusion that his right winger Mark Cueto had scored a good try in the first half and that Josh Lewsey had also touched down fairly in the second. However, he could hardly have disputed Eddie O’Sullivan’s rationale on the former: “Andy was sitting two places away from me. I couldn’t tell from there whether Cueto was in front of the kicker so I don’t see how Andy could be so sure. Nor did the television angle make it any clearer.”

As for the Lewsey “try”, Jonny O’Connor is adamant that not alone did he prevent his Wasps club-mate from scoring but that he also turned him on his back, meaning Kaplan was correct in awarding the put-in to the resultant scrum to Ireland.

It all depends on the shade of your glasses, of course. Robinson spoke glowingly about the attitude of his team, especially in the second half, but when he has calms down in a day or two he will realise that the positioning of too many forwards in midfield as they piled wave after wave of attacks on the Irish line, gave the home side targets to hit.

I have no doubt that O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Geordan Murphy, Jonny O’Connor and the others would much prefer to have Danny Grewcock, Steve Thompson or Ben Kay coming at them rather than fliers like Josh Lewsey, Mark Cueto and Jamie Noon. As a consequence of their own limitations and Ireland’s superb tackling, England’s only try was gifted to Martin Corry early on when, for once, the Irish were marked absent at a ruck 30 metres in front of their own posts, allowingCorry to romp home.

When Ireland struck for Brian O’Driscoll’s record 26th and match winning try in the second half, it came as a direct result of strong, hard running by left winger Denis Hickie, a glorious dummy and delightful angles of running by Geordan Murphy and an exemplary display of handling and balanced running by the captain. This was a move they had worked on in practice and it worked like a dream, just as 12 months ago at Twickenham, Girvan Dempsey’s beauty was also a planned move.

Whether the understandably aggrieved Robinson accepts it or not, this was the difference between the sides. Forwards have their place on a rugby field but they have no reason to be centrally involved when it comes to stretching defences and getting the ball to the pace men.

Robinson will also muse that his namesake and captain at full-back, Jason, is but a pale shadow of his majestic World Cup days. The Sweet Chariot has lost a few of its wheels and the thought of completing their season against Italy and Scotland is less than appealing to all concerned.

Ronan O’Gara was voted man of the match on his 50th appearance in an Irish jersey. He was well worthy of the honour on a day when he was inevitably challenged by so many of his team-mates. His two drop goals were the product of a superb, natural footballer blessed with a magical pair of feet. His line-kicking was the best we have seen for some time and it was wonderful to see how he put his relatively frail frame on the line in standing up to the huge English ball carriers. There were glimpses, also, of the brilliant best of Geordan Murphy and Brian O’Driscoll and the way they combined for the decisive try was world-class.

Nobody closely associated with the Irish camp believed this was going to be anything other than a fierce forward battle and so it proved. Andy Robinson was talking through his disappointment when claiming that his side “dominated the game and the line-outs.”

Eddie O’Sullivan was having none of that and the statistics prove him right. Ireland won 18 line-outs, 17 went to England.

True, the top ball carriers were all Englishmen led by Martin Corry with 13 - but the top tacklers were all Irishmen, O’Connell 15, O’Connor 14, Foley and O’Driscoll 10 and Byrne 8.

Not that the Irish performance was perfect.

Far from it and the French side we saw in the first half at the Stade de France on Saturday will pose another mighty test on Saturday week.

Ireland will be glad of the break. Men like Paul O’Connell, Mal O’Kelly, Anthony Foley, the mighty John Hayes who covered acres of ground and their forward colleagues will carry the marks of this brutally hard, fiercely contested encounter for several days.

Did they deserve to shade it? For sure, this was a game Ireland would never have won two or three years ago. But there’s a belief in this side now that doesn’t entertain defeat readily. It carried them through in Rome, it did so again yesterday and remains one of their greatest assets. There seems no good reason why it shouldn’t still prevail in the two demanding matches that lie in wait.