Kidney rues a ‘hugely disappointing’ defeat

IT was typical of the man.

Even though Declan Kidney was down in the dumps after Ireland’s failure to win a fifth Triple Crown in seven years at Croke Park on Saturday, he felt more for his team and supporters than himself.

Kidney’s old mantra that “you often learn more from defeat than victory” is sure to be tested by the four matches coming up in June against the Barbarians, New Zealand, New Zealand Maori and Australia.

“Look, it’s just hugely disappointing,” he acknowledged. “I can’t put it into words, I know I’m supposed to try. As much as everybody else, we were hoping to finish on a good note at Croke Park. We had supporters and the country depending on us so it’s a disappointing place to be at the moment.

“We got good, fast ball and sometimes the easiest way to defend is to keep the ball in hand. You’ll never improve as a side unless you improve things. We weren’t trying for the sake of it, we knew we had to go after Scotland to beat them. Bar one or two things, we’d be pleased to get two tries against a side who hadn’t conceded many before this.”

Try as he might, though, Kidney failed to hide his disappointment and frustration at a defeat even he wouldn’t have seen coming.

“Today was about winning,” he stated. “Every time you put on a green jersey, you try to do things to grow as a team. There were opportunities to try things today and they didn’t come off. The error count went against us. We got it wrong. I’ll take a look at the whole week. Same as the players, I’ll look at it. Nothing stands out at the moment, I’ll take my responsibility. We’re here to get results and we didn’t get one today.”

It was apparent from an early stage that the line-out wasn’t as well oiled as usual and much of the blame fell on Rory Best who overthrew twice and conceded it’s unacceptable at this level. Surely little could have been lost in giving Sean Cronin a chance for the final 10 minutes or so.

“There was a case to bring someone on but then there was the experience in the scrums to think about too,” claimed Kidney: “Could I have made changes? It’s not an exact science.’’

Then there was the highly unsatisfactory manner in which Ronan O’Gara was brought on for Jonny Sexton. There were reasonable explanations but it didn’t reflect very well on management and then Sexton kicked the penalty under fierce pressure. You can only imagine the furore had he missed!

“It wasn’t nice,’’ Kidney agreed. “We got an indication he was allowed to go on. I don’t have the exact law. The referee overruled the fourth, we wouldn’t have pushed ROG if we knew that was the case. In fairness, (it was) an excellent kick from Sexton.”

Ireland take a back seat for now and won’t be back in action until the game against the Barbarians at Thomond Park on June 4th.

After that, it’s ‘Down Under’ and some serious opposition to test their mettle.

“Gets easier doesn’t it?”, quipped Kidney. “Barbarians will field a strong side, then three tests. All these things are journeys, we’ll take each match when it comes and see who rolls up in June. There’s a lot of rugby between now and then between the Heineken Cup and Magners League.

“The June tests are going to be massive for us and we’d love to be going down there with a trophy but we won’t. I hope to take a good look at the video and see how close we were to opening them up. If we weren’t, we’ll adjust. It was trying things rather than just being ordinary.”

Kidney added: “I think the mistakes we made in (the defeat) in Paris were similar to today.

“I always said if we weren’t right on the money we’d make mistakes similar to those of Paris. Defence held up much better than Paris but our execution with the ball is something we need to work on. France have had a exceptional year but it’s still great for the tournament that anybody can beat anybody. Scotland didn’t surprise me. Every match is a one-off and we didn’t come up with it today.”

Kidney didn’t need to defend his preference for Sexton over O’Gara at out-half but it remains a very live issue with now serious doubts emerging that maybe Sexton still doesn’t have the mental game to cope with the enormous pressure of these games.

“He’ll work on it,” said Kidney. “He’s a young player, he’s learning his way. He made a great break for the try and converted it. He then had a kick in extraordinary circumstances and he came up with that. He’ll get better and better and I’ve always said I was lucky to have two good out-halves.

“Reassure Jonny? There’s two jobs. How you play generally and place-kicking. Some guys can kick everything but have a miserable day otherwise. You separate one from the other.”

And the bottom line was a familiar one: “We let a lot of people down. You don’t like doing that.”