Ireland can play with shackles off, says defiant Kearney

There's a reticence in the Irish camp about looking at the second fence when they are sizing up a jump at the first. Suggesting that viewing Scotland as a points jackpot is plain dumb and pre-emptively disastrous, Rob Kearney's gut is simultaneously telling him that Ireland can play with the "shackles off".

The message is mixed, or more probably nuanced. Kearney isn't saying that Joe Schmidt has somehow tripped out on being beaten by Wales and has sworn himself onto a new path of the debauched libertine coach in a world of bourgeois playbooks.

There is, however, ground to be reclaimed by Ireland. Shackles off has a ring to it and while Kearney's words are laced with caution and qualification about Scotland and the noticeable way Vern Cotter has used young players to widen their game, it's also a declaration of his belief in Ireland's capacity at their lowest ebb so far.

Game plan

“The second half against Wales was pretty entertaining,” he says. “Like I said, by ‘shackles off’ . . . this is not a game like sevens when we’re going out to play and score loads of tries. The Scottish do play a very expansive type of game. If one team bring that sort of game plan, that can rub off on the opposition. It could potentially be a very exciting game.

“I think any time you get to the last game of a championship you can go and play a bit. When I say that, it’s important the wrong perception isn’t picked up here, that we’re going to chase this game and we’re going to try and build points, because we’re not.

“We do know that we have to go out and give this game a right bash. It’s important to get the win but how we do that will be no different to over the last three or four weeks.”

Kearney can be counted on to give it a bash, but it’s a different game to chase a score to winning a match. Apart from the arrogance and presumption that he’s eager to avoid, it could hurt the performance.

But he's a realist too and, as the game between Wales and Italy is before Ireland meets Scotland, he'll at least go on the pitch armed with the score.

Dangerous territory

“I think you’re getting into dangerous territory when you’re talking about words like chasing,” he says. “Do I want to [know the score]? It’s not going to make a huge difference to me. Will I? Yeah, because I’ll be watching the game.

“I think we’re in a pretty good place. Ten wins out of the last 11 games. I think we’re going alright. This week will be a big test and will give a really strong insight into the group as a whole. How we react after a very disappointing defeat.

“We’ll see the real Ireland step up this week. A lot of us who underperformed last week know if we get the opportunity [we can] right a lot of those wrongs . . .”

There’s a fair amount of fighting talk from the Irish fullback, who concedes that he’s clutching at straws to find a silver lining in this week’s aftermath. There’s also a deafening silence about views on referee Wayne Barnes’s decision to penalise Ireland in the last play of the game, a tetchy air of not wanting to go there from both Kearneys – Rob and team manager Mick.

“I know Paul [O’Connell] remarked at the press conference after the game that he didn’t know what the penalty was for. I don’t know what it was for either,”says Mick Kearney.

The subtext is that Ireland’s management and execution of the match allowed one toot from Barnes bring the team crashing down when there was no recovery time. But it was a match edged with desperation and largely of Ireland’s making, with the obliging Barnes a willing catalyst for the defeat. In that sense it’s easily fixed.

"Our discipline was poor, we lost in the air and had a couple of poor lineouts," says Rob Kearney. Traditional areas of Irish strength.

Fix that and maybe the shackles come off.