Dirt-trackers fail to clean up as mood lightens

ONE THAT got away, undoubtedly, but at least it got the show back on the road. Grasping for tackles and trailing 18-3 before the first quarter was over, Ireland’s dirt-trackers played themselves into a winning position, only to let it slip in losing to the Maoris 31-28 in Rotarua yesterday. They move on to Brisbane acutely disappointed, but with a revived spring in their step.

Save for that slightly scary start, which promised yet more of the usual pain in the land of the long white cloud, the body language, the attitude and the line speed and leg strength in contact, especially in defence, and use of possession was far better than last Saturday’s grim night in New Plymouth against the All Blacks.

“We play to win so it is extremely disappointing,” said Declan Kidney afterwards. “I’m disappointed for the players because they put in a great effort. After the first 15 minutes we worked our way back into it, but then we didn’t close out the game. Whether that’s a bit of inexperience maybe, I don’t know.”

Having turned an 18-3 deficit into a 25-18 lead, a couple of loose kicks here, a few wrong decisions or handling errors there, a couple of soft penalties and a couple of marginal calls let slip a rare win in New Zealand. Ireland earned the right to win, only to perhaps become a little spooked by the thought of it.

How the Maoris escaped a yellow card in the first half as Jonathan Sexton reeled off five successive penalties for infringements at the breakdown remained a mystery, before a couple of close calls went against Ireland in the end game.

“He’s a good ref,” said Kidney of South African official Mark Lawrence, before adding diplomatically: “He has to call it as he sees it. It was a centenary match. He’s a good ref.”

Amid the conflicting swirl of emotions, Kidney added: “Last week was a tonking, you feel extraordinary after something like that. But this is disappointing too. What we need to do is take a look at the bigger picture. There’s a lot of three-second ruck ball and you have to decide do you keep going left and right or do you play up the guts.”

Although down to the bare bones (and Shane Horgan went to hospital for scans on a neck/upper body injury), Kidney and his coaches have been given some welcome nudges in the ribs and will surely respond accordingly for next Saturday’s final outing of the season.

Geordan Murphy led the team classily and calmly, and must be a contender for another recall. Sexton landed eight from nine and is pushing hard for a recall at outhalf. Up front, John Hayes may not have done enough to shift Tony Buckley, Ed O’Donoghue possibly auditioned slightly better for the role of partnering Donncha O’Callaghan, while Niall Ronan was the pick of an impressive backrow alongside Chris Henry and the utterly unfazed 19-year-old Rhys Ruddock.

Recognising that all three pressed their claims, Kidney said: “We need to develop backrows in the country that can play at this level because backrow, you’re always going to pick up bangs and knocks, so going forward we need to have more than six backrows, as this tour has shown.”

A trio of Henry, David Wallace and Shane Jennings, with Ronan on the bench, has a likely look to it. At least the debate has some positives again.