Horgan returns to theatre of dreams

IT wasn’t all doom and gloom around Killiney yesterday.

The dull ache of defeat against Wales still lingered but it was refreshing to hear a chuckle from Shane Horgan as talk turned to England.

Given the assignment ahead it was probably no coincidence the Meath man was on media duty for it is snapshots of Horgan in action against the ‘old enemy’ that have encapsulated Ireland’s last two Six Nations campaigns.

Two years ago, it was his injury-time try in Twickenham that snaffled a win as well as a Triple Crown.

Last year, it was THAT leap, catch and touch down at Croke Park and he allows himself a smile and a laugh when reminded of the glory days.

On the face of it, the sight of England should be the perfect antidote to Saturday’s loss — since losing the 2003 championship decider, Ireland are unbeaten against the former world champions.

The problem lies in Ireland’s recent form, which has been as disappointing as Brian Ashton’s side, and it would take a foolish person to confidently predict Saturday’s outcome.

“I was surprised by England’s result (against Scotland),” said Horgan. They have disproved me a couple of times during this Six Nations, but I thought they had the capability to be the best team in this tournament.

“If there is anything I have learned in the last few years, it’s that you have to take every game on its merits and teams like Scotland, who were supposedly down on their feet, can knock out a huge performance.

“You can’t really assume that, because a team hasn’t performed to their best one week, that they are not going to perform to their best the following week. That’s been shown through this Six Nations and through every one since the start of the competition.”

Prior to Saturday, Horgan had only played 10 minutes of this tournament but, when it is all put to bed next week, he may well again be the focus of attention in what could be the defining image of Ireland’s campaign.

Had his 23rd-minute reach for the tryline met with success, Ireland would have breached the Welsh tryline and established a 13-0 lead that could have established a bridgehead to victory.

TV replays failed to end the argument as to whether or not he had, in fact, done enough.

“I wasn’t sure,” he admitted himself. “I knew it was very, very close. I knew I got downward pressure, I knew that wasn’t an issue.

“It was just a case of whether it had scraped some of the whitewash or not. I wasn’t 100 percent certain. Sometimes you are and I wasn’t on that.

“I was trying to get a sneaky look at the replay on the big screen.”

The time since the final whistle hasn’t been easy, he admits. It takes more than a day to “wash off” the pain of defeat but Ireland haven’t the luxury of wallowing in their own misfortunes with a trip to London to plan for.

“It’s the bad thing and the good thing about the Six Nations, that you are straight back into it again and into a very, very big game against England at Twickenham. If you dwell on the past, if you dwell on this Welsh result, it’s going to be nearly impossible to get your performance level right for England. If you don’t get those right at Twickenham, you’re going to be in a huge amount of trouble. It’s important you get your head focused and start thinking about what you have to do to try to beat England.”