Kidney blames nerves for shaky start

Renowned for his calm persona and optimism, Irish head coach Declan Kidney wasn’t fretting after his side’s uninspiring performance against the USA yesterday, insisting nerves simply got the better of players.

“It's unbelievable how nervous everybody gets in the build-up to it,” he told IrishRugby.ie.

“It’s not from a lack of effort, if we had a poor attitude out there I would say so, but I think our attitude was probably we were just too uptight and we have to learn to relax and let our ability take over.

“The fellas out there are good players and you know that's not the norm for them.

“All the areas are things that are within our control and once they are within your control then you have something to work with.”

The performance will have done little to banish the memories of 2007 when Ireland took the pitch against Namibia in the opening game with a similar nervous energy but Kidney isn’t prepared to panic.

“You always want to have things free-flowing going into it but it is what it is, we just need to work on it.

“Sometimes just by calming down a bit and we need every day in training between now and then to get it right, we need to take a look at it, but you know you have good players and you work with them.”

While the set piece functioned reasonably well for the men in green, there was little in the way of attacking thrust and the former Munster coach knows there are specific areas that need addressing going forward in the tournament.

"Individual responsibility on the ball is one of those areas.

"Because it is each individual's responsibility to mind the ball and there were one or two balls kicked down to us, where we conceded field position.

“Had we been ticking the scoreboard better than we had been doing then everybody relaxes a bit, a few more passes go to hand and all of a sudden you run in a few (tries).

“You saw Scotland once they got the lead, they relaxed and got another try, France against Japan, we didn't quite do that in the last 10 minutes.

Disappointing though the performance was, Ireland have ended their losing streak and sit second in Group C and still look favourites to qualify in second place but Kidney knows next Saturday’s encounter with the Wallabies represents a considerably greater challenge.

“Australia is a whole different kettle of fish.

“What we had to do to beat America was one thing, we just have to be smart when we play Australia next week. That's what we have to do.”