Time is not on Kidney’s side

DRAWING comparisons at this early stage of the season is a bit unfair but anyone who tuned in to the Tri Nations contest between New Zealand and Australia on Saturday morning before Ireland’s clash at Murrayfield would have felt they were watching a different sport.

In terms of pace, intensity and skill level, the southern hemisphere match was streets ahead of what we witnessed against Scotland. And there in lays the challenge for the northern hemisphere sides with five weeks to the World Cup. Already we are playing catch-up with limited game time for players to rediscover their form.

It seems unfair to ask players to open their season with an international contest, especially the likes of Rob Kearney, Tomás O’Leary and Jerry Flannery, who have so little rugby played in recent times. The fact that Flannery completed his 20-minute cameo without any difficulty was welcome news, as was the positive contributions of Kearney, who looked comfortable and assured at full-back, while O’Leary made his usual quota of vital cover tackles.

Ireland will be disappointed to lose a game they seemed destined to win despite operating for long spells without possession or territory, with the hosts enjoying an incredible 63% and 67% advantage in those areas respectively.

Given that Scotland started this Test with 10 of the team that completed their Six Nations campaign with a win over Italy, while Ireland fielded just two — Jonny Sexton and Andrew Trimble — of the side that crushed England in their last outing at the Aviva Stadium, the hosts were favoured to win. In the circumstances, they made hard work of it.

This game had all the hallmarks of a first outing of the season with plenty of honest endeavour from both sides but precious little to show for it.

Had Ireland managed to hold out for a win, which they looked like achieving until Joe Ansbro finally breached the Irish line with twominutes remaining, it would have been a remarkable achievement and a testimony to an outstanding defensive effort throughout the 80 minutes.

Scotland have made huge strides under Andy Robinson but their age old problem of turning possession into points almost returned to haunt them. Their offloading game has improved immeasurably but despite creating a number of line breaks they still panic when in sight of the try line.

By way of contrast, Ireland seemed far more assured and composed in attack with Trimble and Luke Fitzgerald both looking sharp in possession. The problem was Ireland had precious few periods of quality ball throughout the contest and spent very little time in the opposition 22. Last season, once they got a foothold in that scoring zone they rarely left without points on the board.

Scotland, with close to 50 possessions in Ireland’s 22, registered just 10 points. That is appalling.

In addition, Scotland had almost three times as many lineouts as the visitors, hence Ireland spent far more time defending with little opportunity to show their wares in attack.

Defence coach Les Kiss will be thrilled with certain aspects of this performance, not least the manner with which Ireland’s distinctive choke tackle managed to stifle Scotland in the contact area.

TIME and again Ireland’s forwards, working in pairs, managed to choke the ball carrier and turn the contact area into a maul. The only problem with this is that it resulted in an Irish put-in to the scrum.

Ireland’s scrum was poor on Saturday, with Tom Court under severe pressure from man of the match Geoff Cross. Things improved when Flannery was introduced along with his old Shannon mates Marcus Horan and John Hayes for the final quarter. With Cian Healy and Mike Ross assured of travelling to New Zealand, the remaining prop positions are wide open, with Hayes making a valiant late effort to make the plane ahead of Tony Buckley, who had some good moments on Saturday. The other area that Declan Kidney will deliberate over is the composition of his midfield backs, especially with injury doubts surrounding Gordon D’Arcy and, less so, Brian O’Driscoll.

I like the look of Fergus McFadden and would definitely bring him.

He now has international experience in the centre and on the wing, along with being a frontline goal kicker.

Paddy Wallace, a long-term favourite of Kidney, was targeted all day by Graeme Morrison and Sean Lamont in defence and was bumped off on too many occasions. With the long-term Leinster pairing also likely to be absent for the game against France in Bordeaux on Saturday, I would like to see a bit of experimentation from Kidney, with Tommy Bowe given a spell in midfield for that game.

With the likelihood of an entirely different 15 returning to the Stade Chaban-Delmas, the scene of Ireland’s near death experiences against Namibia and Georgia four years ago, Ireland will have to go through the exact same process as Saturday with another batch of players set to discover the gulf between training and playing at this level.

At least it will also mark a first outing of the season for the French, who are likely to encounter the same problems. The clock is ticking.