Plenty of work left to do

WALES V IRELAND REPORT, OPINION AND REACTION: In a run of 10 successive wins, especially if compiled by Ireland, by the law of averages there has to be one get out of jail card played. And by heavens, this was it.

The police had completed their arrest, the judge had passed sentence, the cell door had been closed, the lock had been turned and the keys were about to thrown away.

Lucky? Probably. You can point to countless moments when things went Ireland's way, not least when Steve Lander adjudged Justin Bishop's deliberate knock-on not to be a penalty offence, and some referees might have penalised Denis Hickie for offside when he charged down Stephen Jones's ensuing drop goal attempt from that unbelievable, madcap, emotionally draining final act.

Then again, you can point to countless moments when things went against Ireland, particularly the decision to penalise John Hayes for bringing down the scrum which gave Wales the platform for the 82nd-minute drop goal by Jones which had, it seemed, won the match.

Awarded, apparently, at the behest of Paddy O'Brien, it was one of many unfathomable penalties against Ireland in the scrums, an area of the match which Lander never got to grips with.

There was also the Brian O'Driscoll "try" which video replays could not conclusively confirm.

The bottom line was that Ireland held their nerve and won, and it's often been said of good sides that they make their own luck.

Riddled with nerves, particularly after they failed to put the game away in the third quarter, they looked a beaten side as they lined up for the restart after Jones had put Wales ahead.

They had three minutes to salvage the match and the dream of a Grand Slam showdown with England. But luck didn't make Malcolm O'Kelly, Donncha O'Callaghan and the pack chase down O'Gara's restart, nor did it account for the precision and execution of O'Gara's drop goal, nor indeed the dramatic, desperate, last-ditch defending which followed.

Somehow it always seemed to be Wales who were endeavouring to scale the mountain top, whereas Ireland were trying to keep them at bay. They were due to scale another mountain a week later. This was like a league match before the Cup final the next weekend.

For Ireland, despite all the banning of the E word at the back of their minds, this was just a stepping stone toward the bigger prize, whereas Wales had nothing to lose and could swing from the hip. As a result, it was, as coach Eddie O'Sullivan, conceded a very nervous Irish performance.

Toward the end they had looked out on their feet, whereas Wales were full of running. At the full-time whistle Irish players either collapsed or just stood motionless. No one raised their hands in the air, as they'd done against France. They were, as O'Gara revealed, shattered. Mind you, all of us watching felt the same.

Nothing had prepared us for this, not the last two meetings between Wales and Ireland, not countless Celtic and European match-ups. The emotional drain must have been a factor, and O'Sullivan maintained that the primary reason for this was because Ireland had to do so much tackling.

"It was a warm day and nothing tires you like tackling. We hardly had the ball in the first quarter. They had seven lineouts to our two, and all that tackling in the first 20 hit us in the last 20."

The statistics back him up: Ireland had to make 96 tackles to just 44 by Wales.

This also demonstrated Ireland's comparative inability to construct through the phases. Victor Costello, as expected and feared, was sorely missed, and for Ireland to have a chance next week his calf strain has to heal. All 10 of Ireland's tries have come off loose ball or concerted pressure, and, though they're trying moves, they haven't scored once off set-piece play. The pack simply had no one else to punch holes in his absence, and Ireland craved more go-forward ball.

There were other underlying flaws: Wales were given more penalties and more of the throw-ins. The former emanated in large part from Lander's refereeing (with that bit of help from O'Brien) of the scrums. The Welsh front row crowded the space before engagement, but Lander never stepped in between them, and their props, especially Iestyn Thomas, bore in.

The penalty against the Irish front row for collapsing their own put-in under the Welsh sticks (that makes even less sense as I write it than it did at the time) was a huge, pivotal moment in the second-half, almost the last act in letting the home side off the hook.

But the last one, which pre-empted Jones's drop goal, seemingly at the behest of O'Brien, beggared belief. Seen from an ideal vantage point in the press box, just behind O'Brien, Thomas, even before Stringer's put-in, had twisted the scrum inward and was boring in on Hayes; when Lander awarded the penalty all of the Welsh front row had hit the deck.

Just as significantly in the tackle count, though, Ireland missed 18 tackles, to half that by Wales. The tone was set with a couple of missed tackles at the off, and thereafter they didn't appear to be pushing up on the inside, where most of the damage was done.

It came as no surprise that Alan Quinlan and David Humphreys led the way in the official stats, nor, alas, that double-try scorer Keith Gleeson, ironically and unusually, seemed to be the main culprit.

Letting the beefy Jones out of his grasp in the build-up to Wales' third try by Gareth Thomas was a costly miss.

Even Geordan Murphy, oozing class in everything he did, especially in a first-half highlighted by his creation of Gleeson's first try, won't enjoy watching his attempt to stop Jones scoring his 16th-minute try.

On the plus side, the lineout came good again and was the saving of the match in some respects, though the maul wasn't its usual self. Perhaps that's not surprising when you think of the missing beef: Reggie Corrigan, Gary Longwell and Costello pack a lot of punch.

The defence, the scrum, a lack of precision and ruthlessness; judged by the new standards, plenty to work on then.

But that may be no bad thing.