Good news on Horan caps satisfying day for O’Sullivan

MARCUS HORAN will be given the all clear when results of an x-ray in St Vincent’s Hospital are revealed to the Irish management this morning.

The Irish loose head prop was stretchered off the Lansdowne Road pitch in a neck brace in the 67th minute of yesterday’s RBS 6 Nations game against Wales, but coach Eddie O’Sullivan last night issued extremely positive news.

“Marcus got a knock on his neck and at the time he felt a crack,” said O’Sullivan.

“We took all the right precautions and got him off the pitch, which often looks worse than it is. But he’s been given the all clear. The word we’ve been given is that he will be fine and he can move around normally, although he went for an x-ray to be on the safe side. I have no problems with the incident. I know Gethin Jenkins. He’s a good lad and would never do anything intentionally. It was unfortunate, he was trying to clear the ruck and happened to hit Marcus down on the head with his shoulder.

“It could happen to anybody and there was no malice.”

Such good news was just one of many positives for Ireland. It was a day when the bounce of the ball so often went their way and every Welsh error seemed to be punished just as heavily as had been the case in the other direction two weeks previously in Paris.

“Over the 80 minutes, I thought we deserved to win the game and I was especially pleased with our defence,” continued O’Sullivan.

“Our set piece was solid. The line-out operated well, as the game went on our scrummage improved, we were more accurate with the football and very direct in how we played the game. We had to do that to prevent them loosening up the game and our directness paid a lot of dividends. We got some quick ruck ball and put some good phases of rugby together. We didn’t allow them to get into their wide game, we cut them off in the middle of the pitch and kept the integrity of our defensive line all day.

“The more often you play like that, the more confident you are going to get. Our half-time lead was only 11-5 and we were turning into a pretty stiff breeze in the second half. The first score in the second half was going to have a big say in the outcome so it was very important that we got straight into the game and I thought we did that very well. We held on to the football and got the crucial score that set us on our way. We didn’t have the football in the first 15 minutes and Wales came at us. The key was to defend well and make Wales work for every yard they got and I thought we did that very well.”

He claimed that, despite the lucky bounce that helped Mark Jones to his early try, even then the defence was working well.

“We just needed to get our hands on the football, establish field position and convert it into a score and that got us into the game,” he said.

You sensed that O’Sullivan and captain Brian O’Driscoll could have done without any reference to Triple Crowns and even championships. But O’Driscoll was put in the hot seat and had to agree that “it is there for the team that puts its hand up.”

“All you can do is play as well as you can and you’re silly if you look ahead of the next game,” he said.

“I’d like to think there’s more in us and fingers crossed that the confidence we take from that result will enable us to do that.”