Praise all round for Stringer after difficult day for Ireland

IT MAY have been Peter Stringer’s opposite number, Samoa’s Kahn Fotualii, who claimed the man-of-the-match award, but Irish players and management were effusive in their praise of their scrum-half in the aftermath of their Test win.

Stringer’s vision was critical in helping to secure a hard-fought victory over dogged south sea island opponents and his intervention was the turning point of a tight game.

Support for Stringer came from within the camp as coach Declan Kidney, captain Brian O’Driscoll and Luke Fitzgerald all made a compelling case for the in-form Munster man.

The crucial 66th-minute try was scored by Stringer’s long-term half-back partner Ronan O’Gara, whose 15 points brought his Irish tally to just 20 short of the 1,000 mark and highlighted a huge contribution to the team.

But as a relieved Ireland put an end to a run of losses, Stringer received praise for manufacturing the try, as highlighted by Kidney when reflecting on the awarding of a penalty in front of the posts.

“Strings spotted an opportunity and obviously said: ‘Let’s go for it’. That’s what you want,” Kidney said. “Rugby is a game for people to make decisions and you want players with ball in hand to make decisions.

“You have to accept the fact that sometimes they won’t be the right ones but if you stop making them then you just become too stereotyped. In this case Peter took a decision to have a go, Rog (O’Gara) was on his shoulder and I suppose that goes with playing together as often as they have done.

“Ronan took a good step on the inside and hit the ground over the line. He did well, it was a very good inside step, but one you’d be very keen on doing. If you had the wall (of defenders) he had in front of him, you would be inclined to step (inside) yourself.

“It showed confidence (by Stringer); if he wasn’t confident then the safest thing was just to stuff the ball under his jumper and wait for Brian to come in and make a decision, but he went for it and we got the try.”

O’Driscoll praised Stringer’s vision, not only in the creation of that crucial try but also when he made an earlier midfield break to ease pressure that had been mounting on Ireland.

Stringer’s action to build more substantially on the 13-10 lead didn’t surprise the skipper, who said: “They (players) can’t always be waiting for the captain; that’s the thing when you have a lot of intelligent players in the team and when you have a guys with the experience of Strings then you tend to leave those decisions to him.

“Before that, he tapped and went another time and we made 60 metres out of that move so it just shows the quality (of the guy). Sometimes you just (have to) react to situations and he reacted to what he saw in front of him. That’s what we’re trying to do – play heads up rugby – and fair play to him for that. It followed on to Rog and when he saw that the pass wasn’t on, he tucked it under his arm and squeezed in at the posts; good score.”

Further approval came from back Luke Fitzgerald, who reckoned it was all in a day’s work for a player of the scrum-half’s quality.

“I suppose we needed to stretch out the lead, but to be honest I thought we would take the penalty,” he said. “Clearly, it was well spotted by the two boys (Stringer and O’Gara) but then Strings was forever trying to up the tempo of the game.

“Half backs always want to do that because more opportunities open up for them and the team. I guess it was a frustrating day for him in general because opportunities (to do that) were limited, but he took it when he got the chance.”