We need to be far more ruthless, says Reddan

EOIN Reddan would rather have had a more comfortable afternoon at Murrayfield on Sunday but he’s more than ready to look to the positives of a second away win of this RBS 6 Nations campaign.

The Leinster scrum-half, standing in for the injured Tomás O’Leary, scored the first try of his international career in his 27th Ireland appearance as Scotland were beaten 21-18 in Edinburgh.

The victory did nothing to answer questions of Irish indiscipline at the breakdown as the Scots were kept in the game with five penalty kicks despite being outscored three tries to nil. Ireland may have managed to turn a 21-9 lead after 53 minutes into a grim battle for survival yet Reddan saw plenty of good points in the way Ireland defended.

“In the last 10 minutes it was key that we didn’t give away any penalties and we showed a lot of mettle there not to,” Reddan said. “The key in that situation is to make sure that whoever plays against you earns their points and it doesn’t become a soft draw or a soft loss.

“I think everyone was on the metal for the last 10 and defended well, competed well at the lineout, had a key turnover, Denis Leamy got another key turnover. We were good at the breakdown at that stage.

“We’ll be focusing on those 10 minutes and what we did right during those rather than what we did wrong at other times during the game and bring that to the next game.”

Of the things that did go wrong, namely the 12-4 penalty count against Ireland, Reddan conceded that his side had made life difficult for themselves.

“Obviously it could (have been more comfortable) when you score three tries. When you’re looking at the scoreboard and you’re only a score ahead, it’s hard. We probably didn’t make them chase the game like we could have. Because of that it was always going to be close near the end as it was.

“I think we created a lot of opportunities, we knew that they defend quite well and scramble quite well and they did. And they were very good at the breakdown which we knew as well.

“Yeah, there were positives but we’ll know better when we sit down and look at it. But an away win in Scotland, last year we lost at home so there are good positives there.”

Ireland have now been involved in three consecutive games that have finished with three points or less between the sides, narrow victories in Italy and Scotland and an equally slender loss to France in Dublin. Only two tries have been conceded so far in the Six Nations while seven have been scored, including three apiece against the French and Scots and the next step for Ireland, Reddan said, was turning those impressive try counts into more comfortable victories.

“Definitely, absolutely. That’s definitely what should be happening. If you do get a couple of scores out, it forces the opposition to play a bit more which allows you to build more pressure and we haven’t done that really.

“I haven’t really thought about (points difference) but we’ve been involved in three close games.”

Reddan showed enough in his stand-in role to hang on to the starting scrum-half role against Wales in Cardiff in two weeks and he also has an international try to celebrate.

His 28th-minute score came after Jamie Heaslip had earned some hard yards to get under the Scottish posts, from where Reddan took charge and crossed over for Ireland’s second try.

“It’s just nice to get one,” he said. “Everyone grows up dreaming of scoring a try for Ireland so it was nice.

“I don’t know if Jamie remembers much of it. Jamie did all the hard work really but there was no-one there so it was a good opportunity.”