Best and lineout operators get to work on sorting out Gray areas

Although still sporting a shiner at Dunboyne Castle Hotel yesterday, not because he didn’t send a Valentine’s Day card, he insisted, Rory Best emerged from the English skirmish as one of the relatively unscathed few. That said, like all his team-mates, he was still far from happy with his lot.

A review of Sunday’s game showed the Irish lineout operating at between 70 and 80 per cent, some way short of the “magical” 90 per cent bare minimum target. This he attributed to the wet ball and the competitiveness of the English lineout, but it meant a refocusing of energies in yesterday’s afternoon session, all the more so with the 6ft 10in (2.08m) Scottish lighthouse Richie Gray in mind.

“He is athletic and he’s tall, which makes him dangerous and makes him a hard target to avoid but we have a very good lineout. We have a great caller in Donnacha Ryan and we have a lot of good options across the board, so we’ll start to work this afternoon on how we’re going to get the better of that Scottish lineout.

“It is going to be tough, they traditionally have been – and they have shown it again this season – a good lineout. We’ll not just need to be accurate and on the money but also we’ll need to be smart in how we go about it.”

However, the biggest mental scars for the Ireland players, Best maintained, were related to the breakdown.

Physically beaten up

“I just thought up front we were physically, I wouldn’t say dominated, but we were certainly physically beaten up around the ruck time.

“You felt yourself, whenever you went in to slow a ball down or steal a ball, they really hit hard with two people and really smashed our rucks, and we struggled to get that quick ball they were generating.

“And when they were getting quick ball on the front foot they were able to find grass with their kicks. We were trying to kick off slowish ball and it is very difficult. We have some of the best kickers in the world, but if we can’t get them on to the back-foot and get our kickers on the front foot, you are going to struggle to find the open spaces.

“I think probably our kick chase wasn’t good enough. There were too many times they fielded a kick and there was not enough pressure on them and also they were able to counter and break the gain line and get back on to that front foot again.”

Run of games

As much as any combination, frontrowers like a run of games together. But Best was sidelined for the autumn series, and now Cian Healy – who has packed down alongside Best in 26 of the latter’s last 27 Test starts – is suspended. Best was only alongside David Kilcoyne for the last six minutes in Cardiff, and has never played against him, though he likes what he sees.

“We haven’t had a lot of scrums together but we had one or two very important ones in Cardiff, and I’ve been watching David this season and the Munster scrum has been going well. He looks to be doing very, very well in the scrums as well as around the pitch.

“Probably Tom Court will come onto the bench or will start and whichever prop, both the boys are going really, really well. It’s a shame not to have Cian there because he’s a quality player but the two boys being able to step in is hugely encouraging.

“Last week, especially, we did a few live scrums on the Wednesday and he (Kilcoyne) did really well there,” said Best. “I think it’s going to be another step up for him. It’s been a fairly sharp rise for him this year. He’s played Rabo and then stepped up to Heineken Cup and he got capped in the autumn, and now potentially, whichever one starts, it’s going to be a big step up from Heineken.

“With David, that’s what young guys need. They need to go out and play, and whether it’s a start or 20 minutes off the bench it’ll be brilliant for his own development.”