Kidney wary of Scotland’s insider knowledge

TRYING to gain an edge, that’s what rugby is about at the top level, and that’s why — according to Ireland coach Declan Kidney — Scotland have a slight but perhaps crucial advantage going in to today’s Six-Nations match in Murrayfield.

Mike Brewer and Graham Steadman form a critical part of Frank Hadden’s coaching team with Scotland, but both are coming from recent spells in Ireland. Former All-Black captain ‘Bruiser’ Brewer spent three years as Leinster forwards coach, while former Great Britain rugby league international Steadman spent time with Munster before signing on with Eddie O’Sullivan as Ireland’s defence coach.

“It’s one of those variables we understand but can’t do anything about,” said Kidney in Edinburgh yesterday. “We have no control over it, it’s the nature of the profession. They have been great servants to Irish rugby, they have a lot of information, they know what makes us tick. We can do nothing about it, it’s outside of our control. We’ll just have to be sharp.

“I know how Frank Hadden operates; Scotland are getting better, and with Mike Brewer, you can’t underestimate how important that insider knowledge is. They will be trying to deny us space and we can see how they have done defensively. Against Italy they didn’t concede a try, in the game before that (a narrow loss to France in Paris) they conceded just one, and in the one before that (loss to Wales) the sin-binning was the difference. Wales scored lot of points in that time and the game got away from Scotland.”

Despite the perception out there that Scotland have been struggling, Kidney went on to illustrate just how close Scotland have been to Ireland in recent years. In fact the first challenge facing Kidney when he took over last year was to ensure that, in the course of the autumn internationals, Ireland remained ahead of Scotland, retained their ranking of eighth in the world, a ranking that would ensure Ireland were among the top two seeds in their group.

“It was only a few months ago that there was only a few percentage points between us in the world rankings,” Kidney recalled. “Scotland were unlucky against South Africa last November, and then some of our kicks went over against Argentina, but some of theirs didn’t. As long as we’ve been doing it, the margins in Test rugby between winning and losing are very small.”

In outlining how today’s game may go, Irish captain Brian O’Driscoll was also in cautionary mood. “Very tough, physical, uncompromising, a tight game. Hopefully the weather will be good to us, but nothing changes ... I think I’ve played here three times, maybe four times, and it’s always been tough. Scotland have played some good and bad stuff in the Six Nations — they certainly gave France a big scare. They’d have been disappointed with the standard of their first performance against Wales, but they certainly improved from then. Coming off a good win against Italy, I’m sure they’ll have a certain element of confidence to them.”

Another iconic Irish rugby figure, former captain Keith Wood, always said that he hated Murrayfield, probably because of Ireland’s terrible record there during his own playing days; Murrayfield has been a happier hunting ground for the Irish in recent seasons, but remains, according to O’Driscoll, a place to be respected.

“Scotland are always tough. Last year in Croke Park, they owned the ball for 25 minutes, we couldn’t get it off them and we were hanging in there with them. Last time we came to Murrayfield was pre-World Cup when we were beaten.

“Two years ago we came here and we won with a kick in the last minute. People don’t realise the difficulties of a Test match, and how hard it is to break down teams. Scotland are a team that live with any opposition right to the death. I wouldn’t envisage this being any different.”