Coaching for Eddie in war of the words

Risteárd Cooper Hors de CombatI've often wondered why commentators discuss what the coach said to the players in the dressing-room. Based on the evidence of Ireland's match against Namibia last Sunday it wouldn't seem to matter whether the coach had arrived into the dressing-room wearing a frock, tights and stilettos, singing an aria from Bizet's Carmen.

Not an image to dwell on, it has to be said, but with a wounded France looming large on Friday week Eddie O'Sullivan may well be willing to try anything at this stage.

In his after-match interview he said they now needed to "circle the wagons" and "batten down the hatches". It's not the first time I've heard him say that, so God knows how often the players have heard him say it.

His speech patterns are similar to Ireland's playing patterns of late: predictable, hesitant and lacking variety or imagination.

He's naturally drawn to the use of analogy. In the lead-up to the opening game he was quite happy to plump for the old "more than one way to skin a cat" chestnut.

But rather than using it simply as a cliché, he tends to dissect the phrase with forensic detail, exploring every possible interpretation as if trying to attach some hitherto undiscovered pathos.

Personally I'd much prefer him to mix it up a bit and throw in another cliché just for the hell of it, for example: "I'm not saying how to skin a cat; I'm just saying the cat can be skinned in different ways. Sometimes there isn't enough room to swing a cat, so it's up to us to create space for the cat and at the same time not let it out of the bag."

There may also be a temptation to take the "banana skin" line before the match on Saturday.

"This is a potential banana skin for us, no doubt about it, but while avoiding the banana skin is vital, we've got to make sure we don't avoid the banana altogether. We like bananas. We need to go toward the banana, pick it up, run with it and - when the time is right - eat it."

Of course the possibilities here are endless. He could choose to finish with, "If we don't go for the whole banana, we may end up with a banana split and to be fair that would be our just desserts." Ahh! Stop now. That'd be pushing it even for Eddie.

Defenders of his remind us that Irish rugby has gone through a purple patch under his stewardship and that you can't expect him to consistently produce miracles. I'm not so sure. Having been at the helm for six dire displays in a row, managing to negotiate himself a deal worth €4 million over five years before a World Cup ball had been kicked seems pretty damn miraculous to me.

Another piece of Eddie gold was the reason he gave for not selecting a recognised openside flanker as cover for the then injury-hampered David Wallace: "The game has changed. If you look at the best teams in the world none of them has a traditional number seven."

Mmm. None of the best teams in the world apart, that is, from New Zealand, who practically base their whole game around their "traditional" number seven.

Communicating ideas is a fundamental requirement in almost any job, but if the supposedly fly-on-the-wall documentary Reaching for Glory is anything to go by maybe the problem is Eddie's apparent need to extend his vocabulary beyond the F word.

Before the England game in Croke Park we were shown the inside of the dressing-room and there he was in the middle of an intensely wound-up huddle of players, breathing deeply and blinking rapidly. This will be interesting, I thought. What's he going to say?

"Are we gonna ****ing go out there and give it our best ****ing shot? We've ****ing worked too ****ing long and too ****ing hard not to win this ****ing game. Let's get the ***k out there and ****ing get stuck ****ing - eh - in.

IT'S NOT ALWAYS EASY to say the right thing or even to say what you mean. Ask Steve Staunton. God knows what the soccer lads must be subjected to in the Irish dressing-room. Surely it would be depressing in itself to realise you needed some nuggets from Stan to get you through 90 minutes.

Granted, I'm sure it's not easy to motivate John O'Shea into playing ONE good game for Ireland, but I doubt Stan could persuade a mouse to eat cheese.

Maybe our soccer team has less of a chance of winning a big tournament than our rugby team, but at least the soccer team usually have the decency not to qualify.

This Irish rugby team, however, genuinely have a chance. A good chunk of this team are regarded as the best in their position ever to represent Ireland, and yet everything seems to be falling apart at exactly the wrong time. You have to ask why.

All the money, all the planning, all the years of preparation building towards the greatest prize in the sport with possibly the best 15 ever to wear green in the same era.

You may ask why, but I doubt you'll ever get an answer. Not from Eddie. Not with so many banana skins remaining over the next five years.