Dominic Crotty: Static Ireland caught on the back foot

Dominic Crotty looks for the positives from the defeat inflicted on Ireland in Murrayfield last Saturday.

Boy, that wasn’t the result we were expecting, was it?

Far from laying down a marker for the rest of the world, Ireland fizzled in comparison to a fantastic Scottish performance. In terrible conditions for handling, the Scots displayed wonderful skill and a level of intelligent running that Ireland rarely matched. Both teams appeared in fantastic physical condition after preseason training, but in terms of on-field cohesion and direction the Scots were streets ahead of their opponents and Ireland finished a far-distant second.

From the off, the Scots looked far hungrier and sharper than Ireland. They managed to upset the Irish set piece and never let our guys settle. Ireland, on the other hand, rarely if ever made an impression on the enormous Scottish lineout or scrum. It was terrible to see the Irish stand off the hard running Scottish forwards who were nearly always able to make ground before offloading in the tackle and starting the process all over again. It’s very hard to stop big guys if you’re static or going backwards and Ireland rarely went on the front foot. Having paid an early price when the Scots got an easy try in the first few minutes, things got worse and a relatively inexperienced Irish team played catch up all day long.

Another disappointing aspect was that the Irish attack seemed pedestrian. The Scottish forwards and halfbacks ran a variety of angles around the ruck which kept the Irish defence guessing and helped to get them over the tackle line. The Irish, by comparison, dipped their hands into the same bag of tricks nearly every time, living almost exclusively on popped balls to close runners that generally made little progress. In addition, many times there seemed to be no overall direction to the Irish attack with players running into each other or attacking in ones and twos. It was a sign of an inexperienced team that’s not yet used to playing with each other in a pressure situation.

Restarts were the one aspect of the game where Ireland competed really well, dominating this area throughout the 80 minutes. The only downside to this is that they had quite a bit of practice with restarts as the Scots ran five tries past them. In nearly every other area of the game, they’ll be bitterly disappointed with their form, especially after having had such a long period of unbroken preparation during the summer.

Some individual bright sparks were mainly found out wide where Geordan Murphy was outstanding, safe as houses in difficult conditions and a continual threat in attack. The thought of Ireland going to the World Cup without him was outrageous and it seems he has put any perceived drop in form well and truly behind him.

Brian Carney, who has apparently been an enormously good influence on young players at Munster, also ran hard and could turn out to be a game-changer for Ireland if given the space and opportunity. Paddy Wallace again showed a good eye for a break but the display of the halfbacks in general showed how dependent the team is on Ronan and Peter for control.

All in all, Ireland have yet to get out of the starting blocks and they’ve much work to do to approach the high standards they expect of themselves.

The World Cup squad is exceptionally strong and Ireland will travel with a lot of confidence. They are a far better team than they showed on Saturday and hopefully the practice game in France will set them back on the road. Last Saturday is in the past and management will concentrate on taking the positives out of the game and ironing out problems.

One thing’s for sure, when the tournament starts in a few weeks time, the player’s minds will be concentrated and, unlike Saturday, no one will take a step back.

Dominic Crotty will be writing for Rugby.ie throughout the 2007 Rugby World Cup.