Mood glum as D’Arcy set to miss Cardiff trip
D’Arcy was ruled out of the 26-19 defeat by France with the hamstring injury suffered in the championship opener against Italy.
“I do not think Gordon is going to make the Wales match the way things are going,” said O’Sullivan. “There has been uncertainty over his injury and it is not looking good.”
D’Arcy was voted last year’s Six Nations player of the tournament and his presence is considered important in relieving much of the creative burden shouldered by skipper Brian O’Driscoll. Shane Horgan has filled in for D’Arcy in the past but also missed out against France because of an injured thumb. Horgan’s fitness will be reassessed before Tuesday’s team announcement.
Should either Horgan or D’Arcy be given the all clear for Wales, Ulster veteran Kevin Maggs will drop to the bench after lining-up at inside centre against the French.
For Maggs and the other Irish players, a swim in the Marian College pool minutes after the final whistle last Saturday was meant to ease the bruises caused by a Six Nations rugby match.
The Irish players duly returned to Lansdowne Road with their physical needs attended to. Mentally, though, they were as down as down can be, with everybody agreeing that it would be difficult to pick themselves up for next Saturday’s clash with Wales in Cardiff, even though there is still an awful lot at stake.
Ireland can still win the championship and a second Triple Crown in a row is within their grasp. On the other side of the coin, another defeat will leave them to ponder how a highly promising season would end on a decidedly moderate note.
“You’re only one game in this tournament from going from a good season to a bad season and that’s the way it will be for us if we don’t do the business in Cardiff,” said winger Denis Hickie.
“In comparison to what’s been happening over the past few years, three wins is probably down the pecking order a bit. We’ve a lot to play for next week and that’s what we’ll all be thinking of. We’ll have a good look at ourselves and the video when we get back to camp.
“I wouldn’t want to take anything away from the French performance. Their scores were all very good. I’d have to say we didn’t play well enough in the first half and that’s why ultimately we didn’t win. Irish rugby hasn’t come so far as to think you can get away with not playing well against France. With or without the wind, I don’t think we played as well as we needed to in all areas of the game. If you look at every facet of our game, it wasn’t up to what it had to be to beat France, especially in the first half.”
The question facing not just Eddie O’Sullivan but every member of the Irish camp is just why they failed to come out of the blocks on Saturday. Denis Hickie can’t explain why they were so far off the required pace: “We’ll have to look at it. I can’t give you a nice, quick answer much as you’d like one, I’m sure. At 21-19 and the way we were playing, we were cutting it fine but we were still in the game, but we didn’t pull out what we had to which was disappointing.”
Prop Reggie Corrigan readily admitted that picking themselves up for Cardiff is now the big challenge for the Irish team.
“You just have to get on with it,” he said. “There’s still a Triple Crown and championship to play for. We have to try to get that second Triple Crown in succession. Years ago Ireland would have been delighted to be at the stage where they might be going for a Triple Crown, whereas the fact that we are disappointed at the grand slam being a non-event now is a measure of how far the team has come.
“Nothing seemed to go our way against France and everything they did worked. It was one of those days. We’re all devastated after it. I wouldn’t say they were exceptional but they did play very, very well into the wind. They played a very cute game. Their forwards mauled the ball very well. The mood in the dressing-room at half time wasn’t all that down, it was a case of having a go and I honestly thought when we got to 21-19 with ten minutes to go that we had them. You could see the lift throughout the whole team. But that try at the end ... I don’t know what was going on for that and it killed us.”
Ireland boast arguably the best second-row in the championship, but Malcolm O’Kelly and Paul O’Connell knew they’d been in a serious contest after tackling French captain Fabien Pelous, on his 100th international appearance, and Jerome Thion. O’Kelly reacted: “We are angry now and the guys want to do better, so we’ll have to channel that anger into the Welsh game. There was no lack of passion out there.”
O’Kelly came in for some tough treatment from the French, most notably in a first half line-out, but he had no complaints: “It wouldn’t have been as physical as, say, the English game. The French are very strong out wide and they opened us for their well-worked tries. That was the difference in the two games.
“Credit to the French, they played very well, they played to their strengths, they did very well in the maul early on and maybe we were a little bit standoff-ish.
“But we’ve still a lot to play for and our aim is to go out there on Saturday and spoil the Welsh party.”
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