Ireland aim to solve mystery of misfiring attack against Scotland

Ireland’s Eve Higgins is tackled by Lucia Gai of Italy. Picture: INPHO/Giuseppe Fama

Eve Higgins’ choice of path when she finished school was a history and sociology degree in UCD.

Her reasoning was split between the fact that it was convenient for her training commitments with the Irish Sevens in the capital and the stepping stone the course represented towards another of her life’s passions.

Though she is in Italy right now, Higgins’ Masters in criminology at the same university started last week, so she is finally getting to dig deeper into an area of interest piqued by her love of Patricia Cornwell novels and movies like Silence of the Lambs.

“I always wanted to do criminology, I don’t know why,” she said. “When I was a teenager, it was always what I wanted to do. I was always into crime fiction, crime TV, crime movies. The reason I went to college in the first place for my undergrad was to do a post-grad in criminology.

“I can’t really explain, it’s just an interest I’ve always had. I’ve just been flat out doing my readings when I’ve had time off, like during the recovery day yesterday, just focused on what I could catch up on for not being at home. Enjoying it.”

As excuses for missing lectures go, hers’ is hard to beat.

On Saturday, she will be part of an Ireland 15s squad looking to beat Scotland and book their place at next year’s World Cup. That they can still do so is no small thing, given their start to the qualifying round robin against Spain.

Higgins fingerprints weren’t anywhere to be found at the scene of that particular crime, when Adam Griggs’ side went down to a shock 8-7 loss to the rank outsiders, but she clearly dealt with the omission in the right way.

Six days later and she was restored to the team for the 15-7 defeat of their Italian hosts in Parma in what was a much-improved display, but one that still betrayed evidence of issues that could yet cost them against the Scots: converting possession into points among them.

“We have created a lot of chances but haven’t executed them. We still are frustrated with ourselves in that Italy game because we left a few tries out there, and we’re just not pulling the trigger.

“We know how devastating our backline can be, like through the Six Nations, from the setpiece and in open play. We want to execute more of our chances to score. We still want to right some wrongs, even in the Italy game.”

That’s all well and good but there is no scope for talk of ‘the process’. Qualification is everything, and they know it.

“Yeah, of course. We know we’re in a competition, we know the prize at the end of the road. It’s what we’ve been focusing on for the last 18 months. We know what’s at stake, but our main focus is just to win this game.”