Wallace praise for dirty work

RONAN O’GARA captured the headlines in Rome with a trademark last-minute drop goal, but Irish flanker David Wallace also paid tribute to the roles played by Leo Cullen and Donncha O’Callaghan.

Four minutes from the end of a frantic RBS 6 Nations clash, Ireland were facing defeat after Italy edged 11-10 ahead with an unconverted try. The missed conversion attempt gave Ireland faint hope of salvaging something from the wreckage.

Wallace reflected: “You hear the crowd, you see them celebrating and you go, “Oh my God, it’s going to be one of those days”. You get together under the posts, and you’ve got to group together and still believe.

“We kicked-off and that was probably the most important part of the game for us. Leo (Cullen) and Donners (O’Callaghan) got into the mix there and didn’t let them get clean ball, and that was the winning of the game, really.”

Experience surely played a huge part in Ireland’s ability to come back from the brink, and O’Gara’s stunning strike secured a 13-11 win for Ireland. However, Wallace still can’t fathom whether experience or luck dug Ireland out of a hole.

“Who knows? There are a lot of guys on the team who are used to winning. The thought of being the first Irish team in the Six Nations to lose to Italy was there as well – you don’t want to be the first.

“Losing is in your mind. But we got the chance by turning over the ball at the restart. Everyone then kicked into gear and went to win that game. It was such a cool hand from Rog to slot it over.”

Yet, if a drop goal attempt was an obvious option for Ireland, it wasn’t necessarily plan A, as explained by the flanker. “No, there wasn’t a plan, not a team plan. But when you get into that position, you know what’s going to happen and you’re working towards that. Ronan stepped back and he does that; he knows what he has to do.”

Now, with one game done and four to go, Wallace insists Ireland must continue to take a one match at a time approach. “We really can’t look beyond Sunday, and France,” he said.

Facing up to a quality French back row is a challenge Wallace is looking forward to; in particular, he is ready for a personal battle with Thierry Dusautoir and he clearly admires the Toulouse star. “He is a guy I would have a lot of respect for,” he said. “Playing against a guy you find out a lot more than you do watching a game. You’re in the thick of it and you can feel the forces, you know how hard a guy is working, too.”

But there is more to France than a star-studded back row and Wallace has always found French teams to be both interesting and confrontational. “For as long as I’ve been watching France and playing against them, they play like that (open rugby). I’ve been on the wrong end of it at times, and you say to yourself, “How did that happen?” and you just don’t know.”

But that’s not to say he is in awe, believing Ireland can cope. He added: “There is a certain way to defend against them that you really have to carry out, even more than against other teams. They are a little more unstructured, and in passing out of the tackle and guys running on to those balls, you do have to stop that offload game and try to make it more structured.

“You probably have to tackle slightly differently. You have a particular mindset. It is one thing stopping a guy in the tackle, but it’s another thing stopping the ball. There are two things to do: stop the man, and then stop the ball. And the guys around you have to get into the channels to stop the passes and compete for any offload.”

So did Scotland, last week, try to play too much rugby against France?

“It’s hard to know. You can’t limit the way you play; you can adapt your defence,” he said. “There is the argument for playing territory and you want to play rugby in the right areas. Sometimes you might go straight into attack mode without doing the hard work, the picking and jamming to wear a team out.”

At 34, Wallace is apparently on the cusp of signing another extension to his contract to stay at home, and he is looking forward to at least another season at the top. He’s enjoying his rugby and puts that down in part to not wanting to retire. “I think the closer you get to the end, the more you relish it and want to get everything you can from it,” he said.

“I hope I have something left. It’s a question that’s always asked, and there are so many variables: your body, where you play, are you being selected, different things. At the moment I’m really enjoying it, I feel like I’m in good shape. My work rate is as good as it’s ever been, although there are always things you want to get better at.”