O'Sullivan insists the stats back up tactics

RUGBY/Six Nations Championship: Eddie O'Sullivan will give Paul O'Connell every chance to recover from the A/C shoulder joint strain he sustained in the 43-31 defeat to France last Saturday in time for Ireland's next outing against Wales on Sunday week.

Indeed, he didn't rule out naming O'Connell in the team next Friday and giving him until the day or two prior to the game before making a final decision.

"In Paul's case you'd leave it as late as you could," the Ireland coach said yesterday. "He's a key member of the team, he's pack leader and he's playing great stuff, so I think you'd like to give him every opportunity. It would be foolish to rule him out before you have to, he's one of our star performers."

Official reports about player injuries have to be taken with a large dollop of salt, the prime example being last year's declaration that Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy were still in with a chance of playing against Scotland, despite the minor detail - as we've since learned - that they were already on their way to Poland for treatment on their damaged hamstrings.

Of some encouragement, however, is that O'Connell admitted yesterday, while passing through the Fitzpatrick's Killiney Castle Hotel foyer, that the injury has already improved and is feeling better.

Along with O'Connell, neither Brian O'Driscoll nor Shane Horgan (due to a strained ankle) took part in what O'Sullivan said was a good morning's training session. On foot of this, O'Sullivan gave the squad an extra day off, sending them home yesterday. And instead of bringing them together on Sunday he has put that back 24 hours to give them another night off.

The 30-man squad will come together on Monday and will be cut to a starting XV and replacements the following Wednesday.

A review of Saturday's video and match analysis did not change O'Sullivan's view of the match, and "actually confirmed what we thought. It was a phenomenal performance by some players. The workrate of some of the forwards was astronomical.

"People who got criticised, like John Hayes - he had a monster game. People should go back and watch that," he said, pointing out that Hayes hit 37 rucks.

He also singled out the backrow with a barrage of statistics, pointing out that Denis Leamy carried into contact 28 times. "That's off the Richter scale in a game of Test rugby," said O'Sullivan, citing 14 or 15 as the norm.

David Wallace hit 27 rucks and had 14 tackles, while Simon Easterby hit 33 rucks.

To the regular criticism of Easterby, even from former players, that he is "anonymous", or at any rate could be more prominent, O'Sullivan said: "That's just nonsense in my view. To anyone who knows backrow play, they wouldn't say that. Simon Easterby is one of the most respected backrows in world rugby. He proved that in the Lions tour and he's a world-class tail-of-the-line jumper. The suggestion that we go into Test rugby without a third lineout jumper defies logic."

O'Sullivan also pointed to more match statistics in maintaining that the last half-hour was merely a continuation of a carefully designed strategy, rather than a sudden about-turn by the players or a change in tack.

"In the first half we had 16 attacks, and in eight of them we tried to go around the French and the other eight we tried to go through the French. Now, they didn't all work, but the strategy was there, and we talked earlier in the week that if we can stretch them early in the game, then it's in the last quarter that the gaps open up in the middle."

O'Sullivan maintained that the second half was more successful because of the increased accuracy of the Irish players, and that the French defence wilted, rather than any change in approach, for example, abandoning the long skip passes and adopting shorter passing with the game-breakers working in closer harmony off quicker ruck ball.

As to the lack of variety in this strategy with the ball in the first-half - say, for example, not using the maul more often - O'Sullivan said: "There was talk about the maul. We mauled the French three times on Saturday. There was talk that the Scottish had mauled France all over Murrayfield. Scotland mauled France six times; I wouldn't call that a phenomenal change in tactics."

That said, Scotland used twice as many mauls off far less ball. And not employing the maul until the 38th minute, by which stage Ireland were already 29-3 behind?

O'Sullivan retorted: "I don't see the problem with that. If we want to maul, we can maul, but the French defend the maul well. They defended three of the Scottish mauls well, against us they defended it well two times and we rumbled them once. Going in to Paris and expecting to maul France all over the park is not a good game plan. That was my decision."

Another issue has been the slow Irish starts of late, to which O'Sullivan maintained this was due in part to the flow of possession, but admitted there was a problem.

"I agree, it's something we have to look at."