Exhausted but elated, steady Eddie Savours the moment

UNTOUCHABLE. That’s the word that comes to mind and it’s as good as any to describe Eddie O’Sullivan’s status as Ireland coach after masterminding a second Triple Crown in three years.

A few months ago, there were dark murmurings about O’Sullivan’s stewardship, the difficulty he was experiencing in gelling the outstanding qualities of the Munster pack and the Leinster back-line.

How poorly Ireland had performed in the autumn and how he had chosen the wrong team, how the side wasn’t playing to anything like its full ability and committing schoolboy mistakes, most notably in the horrendous first half in Paris. However, having probably exceeded expectation by winning four out of the five games and captured the new Triple Crown trophy, there are many critics now consuming copious quantities of humble pie.

O’Sullivan’s English counterpart Andy Robinson reflected on Saturday that he “didn’t expect to be going anywhere this summer”. That remains to be seen but one thing is certain - O’Sullivan has nailed down the Irish job until after the 2007 World Cup at the very earliest. There was a time when winning Triple Crowns and inflicting a hat-trick of defeats on England was inconceivable but O’Sullivan - a man with an admirable work ethic - and his players have pulled it off and he is due every credit for doing so. Nobody is claiming his team played outstanding rugby throughout the championship but you can’t argue with the end product.

He could have gloated on Saturday but O’Sullivan didn’t sour or snipe at those who have criticised him.

“I’m knackered,” he admitted. “The players do all the physical stuff but you do all the mental stuff so after eight weeks of 14-hour days, I am absolutely exhausted. Then there’s the toll the game takes on you mentally, trying to concentrate for eighty minutes. I am happy and relieved but very fatigued. I’d like to take a few days off but there are still a few bits and pieces to be looked after.”

O’Sullivan usually manages to maintain a poker face even when his side scores but he allowed all the pent up emotion to explode at the final whistle on Saturday. He said he was prepared to take the flak when it was deserved and accepted the doubts expressed earlier this season were “understandable in some ways”.

However, the coach reiterated the team and management were completely united and would be the better for the way they battled their way through it.

“I knew from the outset that this was going to be a difficult year for us“, he said. “We played New Zealand and Australia without Brian [O’Driscoll] and Paul [O’Connell], two talismen. The Six Nations was always going to be a dogfight with little or nothing between the teams in some of the games and there was never going to be a grand slam.

“To be fair to the boys, they have dug deep and they have taken the good with the bad, the rough with the smooth, and come through it. I think we’re a better team now than we were six months ago. We have had difficult times when we had to look at ourselves and ask if we were going in the right direction. It’s not about vindication in a sense, it’s really about becoming a better rugby team.

“We are in transition and Saturday’s team was pretty much half the team that finished in Cardiff last year. This Six Nations was a watershed because we have proven that we can come together as a team and are improving bit by bit.”

The season, of course, isn’t over at all yet for the Irish team given that they must take on the All Blacks and Wallabies in June for what will surely be a bridge too far. And there is a view, too, that this has been a sub-standard Six Nations in which nobody has excelled. Naturally enough, O’Sullivan prefers not to see things in that light and even went so far as to insist that Saturday’s Twickenham victory was a “cracking affair”.

“Some of the rugby we played in the first half was top drawer, the reason we didn’t get to play as much in the second half is because England held on to the football and played some great rugby. England played very well as did we. If we had lost, of course I’d have been very disappointed but couldn’t have complained. This tournament is of great value to all the northern hemisphere teams preparing for the World Cup. The tougher the SixNations, the more we benefit come the World Cup.”

O’Sullivan defaulted to understandable positives when quizzed about the side’s weaknesses.

“Our set pieces were right up there, we had a bit of pressure in the scrum but our line-out was world-class, our continuity game has improved, we’re stringing some great phases together, we have a good balance to our game, our defence is improving and mentally we’re getting tougher.

“You can have a great rugby game but if you’re not mentally tough and liable to cave in when the chips are down, you’re not going to get very far.”