It's not the losses, it's the manner

RUGBY:THEY'RE ONLY friendlies, warm-up games, footnotes in history, etc, and at the outset Ireland would have traded four defeats in August for four pool wins.

Alas and alack, it was grimly evident from a long way out in Saturday’s damp squib of a World Cup send-off that Ireland would be putting that theory to the test.

But it’s not the losses that have proved so damaging, it’s more the manner of them and the baggage that’s come with them. Ireland haven’t just lost four matches, they’ve lost confidence, they’ve lost their form and, coming on top of losing Felix Jones a week before, even more cruelly, given it would have been his last World Cup and he’s only played in one before, they’ve lost David Wallace. It left a pall of gloom over the ground which must have further affected the squad’s spirits.

“Well it affects the squad in that there are always friendships there, fellas will be hugely disappointed that fellas will lose out,” said Declan Kidney. “David is a Lion, isn’t he? That shows that he’s played at the single highest level. He was hugely important for us when we won the Grand Slam, as he has been over the last couple of years, and you’d hate to see it happen any other player.

“But that’s the nature of sport, we’re only here for a small bit, and whoever comes in will be chomping at the bit.”

With a cloud hanging over the absent Brian O’Driscoll and Seán O’Brien, Shane Jennings has been added to the squad, but the net effect of all this wreckage was to leave Ireland seriously short of ball-carrying fire-power on Saturday and beyond.

Furthermore, Cian Healy will travel out four days after the rest of the squad and is a doubt for Ireland’s opening World Cup game against the USA on Saturday week after sustaining an injury to his eye socket. Healy was caught underneath Dan Cole and a pumped up Tom Croft on the ground (a scream could be heard off the referee link) and on first seeing the injury Dr Eanna Falvey clearly complained to referee Nigel Owens.

It didn’t stop there. Jamie Heaslip went off with concussion and Jerry Flannery departed with “a bang on the shin”, though Kidney said he didn’t expect this to affect their availability for the American game, with Flannery’s injury “nothing related to anything in the past”.

Injuries unfortunately happen on the eve of World Cups, and given the three favourites for the World Cup have just come off four competitive games apiece in the Tri Nations, the rationale behind this four-Test programme remains sound. To a degree Ireland have been a bit unlucky.

Although one respects Paul O’Connell’s view that being eclipsed by England at the breakdown was a timely “eye-opener” for what is normally an Irish strength, as worrying has been the lack of form, with only the second-half in Bordeaux, first 20 at home to France and, at a push, the late rally to cling to.

For all the ambition of Saturday’s effort – running from deep and eschewing three-pointers for unproductive attacking lineouts – Ireland drew their third try-scoring blank in four games. To compound the shortage of ball carriers, their back play has struggled to open up defences, especially from long range, and there is little in the way of off-loading or counter-attacking.

About the only positive aspect in the fall-out of this latest setback was Ireland don’t have another game this week.

Kidney, assuredly facing one of the most difficult times of his coaching career, has said the plan always was to have a fairly light week’s work in Queenstown after the squad depart tomorrow. They look a little battered.

“What you have to remember is we leave on Tuesday at five o’clock and we arrive into the hotel in New Zealand at five o’clock on Thursday. So, after a journey like that, if you push it too much you run the risk of soft tissue injuries. Training next week needs to be extremely light.”

While allowing for the way the Namibian and Georgian games compounded Irish woes at the outset of the pool stages four years ago, it ought to be preferable to be facing the USA Eagles on Saturday week in New Plymouth and, in theory, get a few things right, score a few tries and rediscover that elusive winning feeling to banish some of their August memories. Put another way, it would be even more disconcerting if the newly-crowned Tri-Nations champions, Australia, were first up. Or, for that matter, Italy.

Asked what message he had for supporters who may have a feeling of déjà vu a la four years ago, Kidney said: “In sport as in life, no two things are ever the same. I’m not going to, with all due respect, get into a discussion about comparisons between now and ’07 or ’03 or ’99 or whichever they are.

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