RUGBY:THE FAMOUS American lyricist and musician Johnny Mercer once wrote a song for Bing Crosby that contained the lyrics: You've got to accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative, And don't mess with mister in-between. They could just as readily have been penned as an anthem for the Ireland rugby team in framing its current mental outlook.

As the England players smiled their way through the post-match dissertations exuding an air of quiet satisfaction, Andrew Trimble, Mike Ross and Geordan Murphy drew the short straw in engaging the media following Ireland’s fourth consecutive defeat in their pre-World Cup schedule.

There is a precarious verbal tightrope that must be negotiated. After all if Ireland go on and do well in New Zealand then it won’t matter a jot how many warm-up games they lost.

Unfortunately the absence of time travel or a crystal ball means the players must deal in the present rather than in the future commodities market.

In eliciting an insight from three separate conversations, two themes are common; the sense of disappointment and frustration. Trimble is first to articulate those emotions.

“Disappointment? That sums it up. Things didn’t go our way really. I think we showed glimpses. We put them under pressure and, for long periods, they were struggling to deal with us but then we’d cough up the ball. After all the hard work, it’s very frustrating. You get yourself into a position and then give it up so easily. But I’d be reasonably positive, very confident that it’s close to being there.”

His argument is that much of Ireland’s approach work contains the integrity of application that will eventually yield scores providing they can cut out mistakes in the final third of the pitch.

“I felt a few times that ‘one or two more phases and we’ll break them’. You often see it pan out like that.

“It’s just very, very close. It may not appear to a lot of people who don’t understand rugby that much but it is that close. The hard part is what we’re doing well. We just have to keep that going for another couple of phases and we’re laughing.

“I’m 100 per cent confident we’re capable of making it happen. Everything that has happened (in the build-up matches) now won’t matter. If we win the World Cup, we’ll look back and say ‘who cares?’”

Trimble has a simple solution to the negativity that has hovered over their four defeats.

“The way that you keep that positivity is by mental toughness. It’s not the guys on the internet forums or writing in the press that are taking to the pitch. There will be negative spins on what we’re doing, our performances in the last few weeks and the results; a lot of it, but as long as the guys that are going out on the pitch remain positive . . .”

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

“It’s just those last couple of passes, those last couple of carries, those last couple of rucks: if you make them count then you can walk-in in the corner and that’s the difference, between getting the ball turned over in phase five and scoring in phase seven. That’s why it’s frustrating because we’re very close to performing.”

Criticism, informed or otherwise, can foster a siege mentality with the squad but it can also be wearing. Trimble admitted: “Absolutely. The negativity doesn’t come from us. The negativity isn’t around the camp; it’s in the press, newspapers and TV people and supporters and stuff. But the guys who are going to remain positive are us, the guys who are going to take the pitch in New Zealand. That’s really crucial.”

Ross offered a practical appraisal of Ireland’s shortcomings. “We’re not helping ourselves. Passes are not going to hand, we’re coughing it up in the tackle and our ruck efficiency is not what it should be. If we get go-forward ball I think we can play with anyone. It’s difficult for any team to play on the back foot. Credit to England, they did pressurise us in that area at the breakdown.

“If you look at the way things have been . . . we haven’t played the same team twice. There are a lot of new combinations out there. When you have a settled team and you know each other inside out, that helps. We’re just looking forward to the World Cup. We can’t be looking backwards at what’s happened . . . We have to look to the next Test match against the United States.”

Despite the injuries, the basic errors, the lack of creativity at times and the chopping and changing in personnel, as Bing Crosby might say, the Ireland rugby team can no longer “mess with mister in-between”, in terms of their performance levels.