Irish caught in vicious circle

It wouldn't be half so bad if Scotland had truly won this game. But this was far more a case of Ireland losing it than Scotland winning it. Unfortunately, most of this Irish team don't know how to win, either when playing for their country or - in a good many cases - for their clubs, and it showed again.

So it was that when they had played themselves into a winning position, Ireland couldn't deliver. And so, whenever the next chance comes their way (and the odds are that it won't be until after another defeat against the French) they'll be even less likely to take advantage. The vicious circle continues. To say that the team lacks passion, or a desire to win, or that they looked so underprepared is to miss the point completely. The preparations had been good and were manifest in a number of ways.

The line-out variation where Kieron Dawson ripped the ball from Malcolm O'Kelly and moved it on quickly for Keith Wood, Paul Wallace and Eric Miller to come around the tail in a neat arc and transfer the ball to Kevin Maggs was straight off the training ground.

It yielded an early three points and thereafter the line-outs were excellent; not a ball lost on Wood's throw, some good yardage was gained off them and one later led to David Humphreys' sweetly executed drop goal. Paddy Johns even poached a couple of Scottish throws. There might, however, have been a few more variations like the first.

The well-rehearsed kick and chase, based on the correct prematch premise that the Scots would continually run the ball back, also earned plenty of yardage as well as another couple of penalties. The strong Irish scrum added another seven points.

In essence, all of Ireland's 16 points were clearly the product, indirectly or directly, of work done on the training ground. They also produced a number of other moves which pierced the Scottish back-line or got the wingers around the outside.

Indeed, in a congested midfield, Ireland were the more inventive, while the tackling of Humphreys, Mark McCall and Maggs, with help from Dawson and the backrow, held up well. Alas, they lacked the finishing touch, most notably when the centres acted as decoys for O'Shea to burst through but he was unable to locate Denis Hickie out wide.

But all of the good work on the training ground, and some of the good work done on the pitch, was regularly undermined by failure to carry out the basics. Working off a strong scrum which they could tweak pretty much as they pleased, the back-row moves too often back-fired. Miller once lost control of the ball, and subsequently threw out an untypically loose pass to ground, while David Corkery fumbled another in contact.

It didn't end there. McCall's two dropped passes will haunt him. Likewise, Humphreys will regret his two wayward restarts in the opening period. These were basic errors, and were probably at the root of his overly conservative, long restart when Ireland fell behind with ten minutes to go.

The Scots weren't much better. At times, most notably during a ridiculously mistake-ridden start to the second period, the errors were almost comical. That Scotland ultimately stole a match that even Jim Telfer admitted he thought was lost, was because they did less to lose it - albeit with a little help from Telfer's masterful substitution of his loose-head prop.

Their comparatively risk-free strategy of monotonously popping the ball to close-in runners met with a stern enough resistance from the Irish fringe and midfield defence. The problem was that Ireland don't have the physique or stature to make the offensive big hits that might have forced turnovers. Nor, for that matter, did Ireland have the close-in target runners to try the same tactic against the Scots.

With Gary Armstrong, Craig Chalmers and, most of all, Alan Tait augmenting Peter Walton as target runners, the Scots were able to recycle ruck ball continually. Without the same physical presence from numbers nine to 13, Ireland usually had to move the ball beyond midfield, which made recycling it more difficult.

With the Scots typically spine-parallel-to-ground body positioning in the tackle, we were presented with the rather remarkable post-match statistic of rucks won, namely 65 to 30 in favour of the Scots. This, according to former Scottish full-backs Gavin Hastings and Andy Irvine is exclusively down to Telfer.

That said, in all other areas Ireland were at least their equals and generally played the more imaginative rugby. With a key edge in the scrums, they had played themselves into a winning position at 16-11 entering the last quarter. True to their word, they had spread the ball regularly to Hickie and Richie Wallace, had taken the game to Scotland and were encamped on the visitors' line.

Perhaps there was an argument to kick for goal; some of the Irish players themselves later confessed they wanted to. Perhaps they could have kicked for touch - one earlier drive for the line at 3-6 had been illegally taken down when Rob Wainwright whipped the legs from under Malcolm O'Kelly. Or they could have opted for a back-row move, which Keith Wood later revealed was to be the next call.

But it's an easy game played with hindsight. Had the Irish scrum earned another sevenpointer the game was up and there would have been nothing like the critical reaction that has greeted the decision to keep scrummaging.

Instead, referee Williams penalised Paul Wallace for not binding. The decision to later penalise the Irish backs for offside was decidedly borderline given how the Scots had been lying, but the penalty on Ireland's put-in against Wallace which decided the match was almost sadistic and smacked of post-Lions South African payback.

Even so, Ireland's response in that final quarter was depressing. Far from lifting their intensity, they let it drop. More individual errors compounded a collective lapse in concentration and nerve. Ed Morrison didn't do Ireland any favours with three incorrect, borderline decisions along the touchline but, even so, in the last ten minutes alone, Hickie and Humphreys kicked out on the full either side of Brian O'Meara twice kicking directly to touch. For a moment it looked as if the firedup O'Kelly was going to assault Humphreys.

When it might have been time to kick for touch, Miller tapped and went. Even then, with the Irish driving off a line-out and still on their feet, the ball was released for Humphreys to try another drop goal from all of 45 metres. It fell short. Ireland fell short. Cue the post-match blues. No passion, no pride, the worst ever according to several former internationals who, their memories shortened, forget that they probably played in a few worse themselves.

One wonders what the verdicts on Ireland and Humphreys especially might have been had he somehow found an extra ten yards. At least this team would have sampled a desperately needed win, and could have examined their errors in an altogether more positive light. Instead Chalmers, the man who calmly steered Scotland upfield and landed the decisive penalties trooped off with a recent record against Ireland which now reads 9-0.

Truly, it is a vicious circle.

Scoring sequence: 7 mins: Humphreys penalty 3-0; 14: Shepherd penalty 3-3; 29: Shepherd penalty 3-6; 38: Penalty try, Humphreys conversion 10-6; 40: Tait try 10-11; 50: Humphreys penalty 13-11; 55: Humphreys drop goal 1611; 68: Chalmers penalty 16-14; 72: Chalmers penalty 16-17.

IRELAND: C O'Shea (London Irish); R Wallace (Saracens), K Maggs (Bristol), M McCall (London Irish), D Hickie (St Mary's); D Humphreys (London Irish), B O'Meara (Cork Constitution); R Corrigan (Greystones), K Wood (Harlequins, capt), P Wallace (Saracens), P Johns (Saracens), M O'Kelly (London Irish), D Corkery (Bristol), E Miller (Leicester), K Dawson (London Irish). Replacements - (temporary) N Popplewell (Newcastle) for P Wallace (63-65 mins), V Costello (St Mary's) for Dawson (69 mins).

SCOTLAND: R Shepherd (Melrose); C Joiner (Leicester), A Tait (Newcastle), G Townsend (Northampton), K Logan (Wasps); C Chalmers (Melrose), G Arm- strong (Newcastle); G Graham (Newcastle), G Bulloch (West of Scotland), M Stewart (Northampton), D Cronin (Wasps), D Weir (Newcastle), R Wain- wright (Dundee HS), P Walton (Newcastle), S Holmes (London Scottish). Replacements - D Hilton (Bath) for Graham (62 mins), S Grimes (Watsonians) for Cronin (66 mins), D Lee (London Scottish) for Shepherd (80 mins).

Referee: A Watson (South Africa).