O'Driscoll and D'Arcy face anxious wait

THE PROGNOSIS regarding Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy will become clearer today but the initial expectation is both should be available for Leinster’s Heineken Cup quarter-final at home to Clermont Auvergne on April 9th.

O’Driscoll sustained a medial ligament strain in Ireland’s 23-20 Six Nations defeat to Scotland which is expected to sideline him for two to three weeks, while D’Arcy’s groin strain may keep him out of action for a week or two.

It will still be an anxious wait for the holders, but Ireland and Leinster sources dismissed reports of O’Driscoll being sidelined for six weeks.

All of Ireland’s front-liners would probably have been rested from next week’s resumption of the Magners League in any case, though in addition to missing Leinster’s game at home to Connacht, O’Driscoll is likely to miss the Good Friday clash with Munster in Thomond Park the following week as well.

Geordan Murphy also sustained a back injury which is being diagnosed today in Leicester.

Thus the scars from Saturday’s flighty, error-strewn and misguided defeat to the Scots run deeper still and are mental as well as physical. Bottom line, this Irish team shouldn’t be losing to that Scotland team at home, and bidding such a poor farewell to Croke Park felt even worse than the beating in Paris.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just feel as if you’ve let an awful lot of people down, and you don’t like doing that,” admitted Declan Kidney. The Ireland coach said the navel contemplation would start with himself and the management team.

“The same as the players, I’ll take a good look at things. I’m loath to say there’s nothing stands out at the moment, but I’ll take my responsibility. That’s what we’re here to do, to try and get results, and we didn’t get one today.”

In particular, many people will question limited use of the bench, especially as Rory Best’s increasingly wayward throwing under pressure contributed to seven lost lineouts. Was there not a compelling case for bringing on Seán Cronin?

“There was but then there was the experience in the scrums to think about too,” said Kidney. “You try and match it and we were getting a message on to shorten the lineouts. I think you’ll find two went against us and then they went to shortened lineouts after that. Do you shorten them or do you make the change? Because Rory was bringing a lot of things to the table. So, yeah, maybe I could I have made changes. It’s not an exact science.”

There was also the embarrassing sight of the failed replacement of Jonathan Sexton with Ronan O’Gara prior to the former landing his 51st-minute penalty.

It transpired that fourth official Peter Fitzgibbon was wrong to initially allow O’Gara on to the pitch. “We got an indication that he (Ronan O’Gara) was allowed to go on. I don’t have the exact law in front of me – at a penalty is a change allowed or not,” explained Kidney.

“But the referee overruled the fourth official and so we wouldn’t have pushed Ronan like that if we knew that was the case. In fairness to Jonathan, it was an excellent kick as well.”

Kidney maintained the ambition of the first half was in part because the Scots were keeping three players back and had a strong breeze with them. Nevertheless, the two most ambitious, and least pragmatic performances in the championship also turned into the most chastening.

With the game against the Barbarians on Friday, June 4th, followed by an early flight the next morning to New Zealand for the three-Test tour against the All Blacks, the Maoris and Australia in mind, Kidney said: “I think the mistakes we made in Paris were similar to the ones we made today. I’ve said that if we were not right on the money in our own performance we’ll make mistakes maybe similar to the ones we made in Paris.

“Our defence held up much better than it did in Paris but our execution with the ball is the area we’ll be looking to work on the most.”