Earls not dwelling on what might have been

THE look on Keith Earls’ face was self explanatory.

Disappointment would have been an under-statement indescribing how he felt.

With less than two minutes left, Earls was screaming to get the ball with the Welsh defence all but beaten. Instead, substitute Paddy Wallace cut inside and into the cover. Chance lost. Game over. Cian Healy’s knock-on confirmed it.

Had Wallace off-loaded, as he should have, Earls would surely have scampered over untouched for a try to cut the deficit to a single point. He might even have been able to bring the try closer to the posts to give Jonathan Sexton a more favourable chance of kicking a match-winning conversion.

You sensed Earls was privately playing this scenario over and over but publicly he apportioned no blame to Wallace.

“That was a bit frustrating but the noise level out there was incredible. Paddy made his decision and I have to back him up with whatever he chose to do.”

Rather than look back, Earls believes the only option for Ireland is to forget about the result, look forward to England and a chance for redemption.

“Yes, there are things we need to rectify and this loss hurts. But we’ll be fine. We have a good trust in each other. We lost but in fairness to Wales it was a great defensive display.”

Another Irishman determined to look forward rather than back is Sean O’Brien, who explained how he viewed the controversial quick line-out which led to Wales’ sole try.

“We can go on and on,” said the Tullowman.

“Some things go your way and some don’t. I saw the second ball coming in, but I didn’t think any more of it because the strapping on my leg was falling off. I was pulling that off at the time, but that was it.

“We knew the rules, five or six lads had noticed it, it was easy thing to recognise, but the game is over now and we have to move on.

“I don’t know whether we would have won if it hadn’t been scored but decisions in games swing things one way or another and they would have got a good bit of confidence from that.”

Almost of equal disappointment to O’Brien was the way Ireland allowed Wales creep back into the game, although he questioned the validity of the two penalties kicked by James Hook to bring Wales to within a point.

“I don’t think they were ridiculous penalties we conceded, in fact they could have gone either way but that was the referee’s decision and they slotted over a couple of three-pointers to keep them in touch with us; from there on they were still in the game.”

With nothing much left to play for but pride, O’Brien conceded that in normal circumstances it could be a long, lonely week building up to the final championship game of the season.

But England being their opponents makes it different and there was even a hint of a smile as he mused: “It’s a completely depressed dressing room but we’re all professionals and it’s a massive game next week.

“We will go back in tomorrow night and re-group and look forward to the England game.

“After a loss I suppose we have to first review on what went wrong but we will need no motivation for England. It’s a massive game at home, so we will want to go out and do a job.”