Mend our ways or pay the penalty

SERIAL offenders and even cheats according to Scottish coach Andy Robinson.

Those are the accusations levelled against the Irish rugby players and management this week and they will have to plead guilty to at least some of the charges.

When Romain Poite whistled them off the pitch at the set piece in the game against Italy and Dave Pearson followed suit in the agonising three-point defeat by France, much of the fire was directed at the referees and the supposition they had gone into those games with preconceived notions.

However, when a referee of Nigel Owens’ reputation follows the same line, it is time to accept something is indeed radically wrong. In this column last week, it was suggested that having Owens in charge could help the Irish cause given he was so well accustomed to their ways.

If anything, however, he took a tougher stance. It is rarely apparent what is happening at scrum time and very often in the line-out but some of the indiscretions bordered on the unbelievable they were so blatantly obvious. Few will forget how Jamie Heaslip grabbed scrum-half Mike Blair’s jersey at a ruck when he clearly didn’t have possession. Owens looked so surprised he took longer than necessary to award the penalty!

Then Denis Leamy wasn’t long on the pitch when he could have been sent to the bin.

In the end, Ireland scraped the win, just as they had done in Rome, and there was rich irony in the fact that the only player yellow carded was Scottish prop Allan Jacobsen for a technical scrummaging offence, a decision that understandably maddened his coach Andy Robinson.

Considering that the penalty count was 13-4 against Ireland, Robinson was also entitled to wonder how the Irish escaped without a single visit to the bin.

Quite rightly, the players are taking most of the flak but you are also left to wonder just what goes on when they assemble in “camp” in Killiney. They have been at it now since the beginning of February and by the time they go home after theEngland game on March 19 will almost need to be reintroduced to their families!

The areas of most concern are the breakdown and the scrum and while the buck stops with head coach Declan Kidney, he will want to know from Less Kiss and Gert Smal, his experts on defence and forward play, just what is going on.

You can rest assured they strive to get the grips with the indiscipline malaise during their many team meetings. But they have failed to find a solution and the time has now surely arrived for a few heads to roll.

Significantly, captain Brian O’Driscoll has warned players would “have to front up or miss out.”

However, his words have so far fallen on deaf ears. The great pity is that something really meaningful can be salvaged from the season if only the penalty and unforced error count is substantially reduced.

Wales in Cardiff on Saturday week won’t be easy but their display against Italy was poor and a win can be achieved given the right attitude and approach. That would leave us with the mouth-watering prospect of facing England for the Triple Crown at the Aviva on March 19 and in all likelihood the chance of depriving them of a Grand Slam.

As always when England get a sniff of glory their newspapers and media in general go completely over the top.

But the truth is that they remain a team lacking in vision and variety with a conservative and safety first approach very much in the mould of their coach Martin Johnson. They will dispose of Scotland without the slightest difficulty at Twickenham and will then expect to batter Ireland a week later.

That could be the rock on which they perish. Ireland also have their hard men, guys like the ever improving Sean O’Brien and Mike Ross and the long established Donncha O’Callaghan and Paul O’Connell along with skill and commitment to burn in the likes of David Wallace and Jamie Heaslip. And if Kidney goes with his instinct and continues with Ronan O’Gara at out-half, he has another man in a key position with the stomach for the fight.

The pressure will be on the coach to restore the younger and physically stronger Jonathan Sexton and it will be fascinating to see how he handles that selection dilemma. Sexton did little wrong in his two starts against Italy and France but it was O’Gara’s drop goal that saved our blushes in Rome and his brilliant touch finder followed by a conversion from an acute angle that got us to within striking distance of the French. And then came a man of the match performance at Murrayfield. No matter which way he goes, Kidney will be wrong in the eyes of 50% of the population.

The two half-back positions remain the major talking points with Tomás O’Leary, Eoin Reddan and Peter Stringer all in decent form and forging sound claims for a starting place. Otherwise, there seems little reason to change the side and hopefully the more they play together, the wiser they will become and less liable to concede all those ridiculous penalties.

The substitute bench is a slightly different matter. It’s difficult to understand why Fergus McFadden was dropped altogether after a try scoring performance against France while Paddy Wallace remained.

After all, Sexton was there as a straight replacement if required for O’Gara with McFadden ideally equipped to fill all four positions in the three-quarter line. And it was no coincidence that Ireland’s level of performance deteriorated once most of the bench was emptied with the best part of 20 minutes still to play on Sunday. It’s an area in which the management continues to struggle.