Ireland given painful send-off

AS if the physical pain of this final World Cup warm-up were not enough to bear for Ireland’s squad heading to New Zealand tomorrow, the mental anguish of a thorough going over by England threatens to be even more damaging.

Declan Kidney’s squad suffered its fourth pre-season Test defeat in succession at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, losing veteran Munster flanker and three-time Lion David Wallace in the process to a knee ligament injury while a damaged eye socket has placed loosehead prop and Ireland linchpin Cian Healy in doubt for the Pool C opener against the USA in New Plymouth on Sunday, September 11.

On top of that, Jamie Heaslip added to Irish back-row woes by taking a bang to the head while hooker Jerry Flannery also got a knock on the shin in a physically demanding encounter that saw the English exact revenge for their Grand Slam-spoiling defeat in Dublin last March.

Now Kidney and the Irish management board the plane for Queenstown tomorrow minus Healy, who will wait four days before travelling, but with Shane Jennings as Wallace’s replacement, looking for ways to fix the problems their players experienced at the breakdown, a resurgence in individual errors and the lack of creativity to penetrate the English defence.

They will need every minute of the down time the long journey to New Zealand’s South Island will require before turning the heat back up in training in the days before their opening clash with Eddie O’Sullivan’s Eagles and immediately after it, the sizeable task of plotting the downfall of a rampant Wallabies side.

Kidney, for one though, is positive in the face of the evidence to the contrary from four straight defeats and despite speaking of his bitter disappointment he defended an ultimately punishing pre-tournament fixture schedule.

“We needed the games, to me that was very apparent, and we have had the games and we haven’t got the results that we wanted but we will be the better for having it,” he said.

“I have put together teams in the past and I can see us coming together now, there is obviously work to be done but I know we needed the games and I am glad we played the games.”

Whether the Irish players are in a better mental state now than they were four weeks ago, however, is the big question. There is still positivity being emitted from the dressing room and Irish fans hope its more than just sound bites.

Andrew Trimble, one of the brighter performers in all four warm-up Tests, believes the team are just one pass away from clicking.

“Definitely, that’s one way to look at it and that’s the sort of thinking that we’ll be bringing into the World Cup over the next couple of weeks,” Trimble said.

“It doesn’t come out of nowhere, you know, it’s just those last couple of passes, those last couple of carries, those last couple of rucks. If you make them count then you can walk in in the corner and that’s the difference, between getting the ball turned over in phase five and scoring in phase seven and that’s why it’s frustrating because we’re very close to performing.”

Ireland never remotely looked like scoring against a belligerent pack intent on blurring the lines of legality at the breakdown. It resulted in a yellow card for Chris Ashton just after the interval and high penalty count in the home team’s favour, although the easy points were eschewed in the name of adventure and starting fly-half Ronan O’Gara kicked to the corners.

That’s when Ireland had the ball. They only took possession of it after England had breached their try line in the fifth minute when Leicester’s young midfield bulldozer Manu Tuilagi broke the green line, charged around the outside of Keith Earls and crossed the line for Wilkinson to convert.

Not that England had too much to crow about as the expansive running rugby that destroyed Australia, no less, at Twickenham last November was abandoned in favour of ye olde forward brutality.

They are good at it though, and Ireland struggled to cope. Kidney’s side found themselves 13-9 down and minus Wallace at half time, the three-time Lion’s World Cup hopes having been ended by an awkward fall in the midst of a fair tackle by Tuilagi. And when substitute Delon Armitage fell onto a well-judged Mike Tindall kick through for England’s second try just after the break, Martin Johnson’s side reverted to type again, and bludgeoned Ireland to a standstill.

All of which left the Irish with a long flight south and plenty of hard thinking to do because any hopes of progressing past the quarter-finals look deeply deflated.

IRELAND: G Murphy, T Bowe, K Earls, G D’Arcy, A Trimble, R O’Gara, E Reddan; C Healy, J Flannery, M Ross, D O’Callaghan, P O’Connell, S Ferris, D Wallace, J Heaslip.

Replacements: D Leamy for Wallace (22), D Ryan for Heaslip (35), R Best for Flannery (50), C Murray for Reddan (62), J Sexton for O’Gara (62), T Court for Healy (70), F McFadden for A Trimble (71),

ENGLAND: B Foden; C Ashton, M Tuilagi, M Tindall , M Cueto; J Wilkinson, R Wigglesworth; A Sheridan, S Thompson, D Cole, L Deacon, C Lawes, T Croft, H Fourie, J Haskell.

Replacements: D Armitage for Cueto (21), T Wood for Fourie (21), D Hartley for Thompson (52), M Stevens for Sheridan (55), S Shaw for Deacon (63), T Flood for Tindall (75).

Yellow card: Ashton (42-52).

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales).