O'Donovan hopes Irish pack a punch

It was observed that Niall O'Donovan looked more anxious when the television cameras cut to him during the broadcasting of Eurostar than when the Irish rugby team were strutting their stuff at Croke Park.

The assistant Irish coach, whose daughter Maeve is competing for the Eurostar title, is used to a different kind of pressure.

"That I find more traumatic than anything else," he says of the singing championship. "She wants it. It's something she's kinda backed herself on since she was small. She did fine. She did fine. For a 16-year-old, she did fine."

This week is also expected to bring some anxiety, although Scotland's threat to O'Donovan's state of mind hardly compares to that of a TV jury's careless observations on his teenage girl. His proud track record with the Irish pack is also a little more predictable than the remarks of an assembly of B-list celebs. Rather, forwards coach O'Donovan can expect quite a lot from his charges.

Despite the nay-sayers pointing to a creaking scrum at the beginning of the championship, it hasn't handicapped Ireland in any way so far, while the lineout has emerged as one of the best in the competition. That impression is also backed up by the statistics and "when you look at going into this match, our record so far would be around 90 per cent in the lineout, which would be fairly good," says an understated O'Donovan. "I always say that if we went out there against nobody and threw 20 balls we'd get two of them wrong, a lifted throw or a jump or something. It would work out at about 90 per cent against nobody, so that figure when you are actually in competition isn't a bad return.

"Now, Scotland are averaging around 30 per cent on opposition ball. So something has to give this weekend - whether they keep their 30 per cent on opposition ball and we go down to 70 or 80 per cent, or, we hold our 90 per cent. Scotland have always been good at lineouts. Scott Murray, I'd say is one of the best lineout jumpers around. Their pack is a fit, athletic pack and we have to be at our very best just to match them."

Most of the talk this week has been how Scotland will target the Irish pack. Fuelled by the ignominy of defeat by Italy and acutely aware that to salvage anything from this Six Nations Championship, they must demonstrate significantly more nous and passion, Scotland have little to lose. The opening 20 minutes is expected to be bruising and the pack will be at the heart of the battle.

"It's a team thing, really," says O'Donovan. "The pack would depend on what the backs do with the ball when they get it too. Do they keep it close to the pack, do they keep it ahead of the pack, will they keep the pack in the game? If the pack goes out of the game for the first 10, 15 minutes they find it hard to get back into it. But if they start well then it can hold for the 80.

"Packs like to bully one another, they like to take control of the set-pieces and the fringes around the rucks, mauls," he adds. "If you look, sometimes you can see a pack's head going down if they take a bit of a pounding. The knock-on effect of that then is good quality ball for the backline."

What makes the opening salvo so predictable is that the Scottish forwards coach, George Graham, has said as much. As if to try and defuse the Irish backline and their supply of ball, the Scots are saying that they are looking at route one, although if their tactics are that simple it could well be that they are playing silly buggers. O'Donovan is, on the exterior, easy going and he seems deeply unconcerned about that declaration of intent.

"The Scots said they are going to target out pack. I mean we all say that. If we want to win a game, then we've got to win it up front first. There is going to be a battle royale. They also have it in their heads that we are an ageing pack. I don't know where they got that from. But I imagine they'll try and shift us around. They've a wide, wide game."

O'Donovan's nature is to be confident without being brash, to be wary without being skittish. The team go to Murrayfield respectful and well armed. While recent results there have been good, there was a time when Ireland's Six Nations default was to lose in Edinburgh.

"I think we'll have to be as good as we were against England," he says. "And probably be a bit better when it comes to lineouts to actually get parity there again."