LIONS-28 Springboks-9

PRIDE OVER JUSTICE

You know, it’s really hard to play rugby when you have a bee in your scrum cap.

Justice my arse!!! How could they even consider going on their little crusade when the IRB virtually legitimized their eye-gouging???

I mean, I was more than happy to put all that behind me until I saw their pathetic little armband protest, and while before the game I would have had at least a measure of respect for the home side had they completed the whitewash, by kickoff I was praying the tourists could come out on top.

And weren’t they just three of the best tries you’ll ever see in a Test match?

One player I was looking for from a performance standpoint on the day was Jamie Heaslip, since he had been relatively quiet in the first two games, possibly overshadowed by his gargantuan opposite number Pierre Spies (who, by the way, also had a hand in Burger’s misdemeanour, check out the evidence…).

The Leinster Number 8 certainly didn’t let me down, and while predictably the Sky Sports commentators were wetting themselves over the fact that Shane Williams scored the first try, they conveniently ignored the fact that it was Heaslip who made the break and slipped an unbelievable offload into the Welshman’s arms.

And apart from conceding the odd unnecessary penalty, the Newbridge lad was impressive all over the park, no more so than when he went down in a tackle in the second half then got into what can only be described as a “crab position” and scooted along for another ten meters!!!

But if his offload for the first try was “unbelievable”, then the English language doesn’t have a word for Riki Flutey’s shortly afterwards. He was always something of a misfit on this tour, wasn’t he? Everyone’s favourite for the 12 jumper before the squad headed south, a combination of injury and Roberts’ sparkling form sent him tumbling down the pecking order.

Though I was annoyed D’Arcy didn’t make the 22, in some ways it was fitting for Flutey to at least have some part in the series’ highlight reel and his lightning quick hands certainly earned him that. Again S Williams got the touchdown, but again it was a gift.

And last, but certainly not least, we have the “Monye-mental” third try which sealed the deal. Messrs Harrison & Barnes called it “vindication”. I call it opportunism. If this guy is going to score a memorable try for you, this is about the only way he’ll do it. Snag an interception and fire up the rockets. “There’ll be no catching him”, I said as soon I realised there was no infringement. I’m sorry, but I still don’t rate the guy any higher than Premiership standard.

Which leads me to the burning question – who was my player of the series? Well, my heart of course has to go with Rob Kearney, who at least emulated if not surpassed his achievements from Pretoria yesterday. But since he wasn’t picked to start in the first Test, if I was forced to go with someone who began all three, I would have to go with Mike Phillips.

He’s not the world’s most technically gifted scrum-half by any means, but in a Test series like this one where the opponents were going to be physical, he was certainly the right man for the job, as you can see from the above pic. I know I’ll be accused of donning my Leinster cap when I say this, but I honestly don’t think an O’Leary/O’Gara half-back line would have done any better than the two Welshmen did over the three matches.

Plus the Ospreys No 9 was able to spurn the amorous advances of Bakkies Botha who seemingly was hypnotized by his “sexy blue eyes”. That surely must have been tough for him to ignore, so I’ll give him the nod, if for no other reason than to avoid being considered a “one-eyed Irishman”!!!

So that’s it, the series and the tour is over for another four years. FINALLY we can bring the curtain down on the Northern Hemisphere’s season, and thank God it ended on a high note so we won’t be subjected to Sky’s doom and gloom which was trying to make us over on this side of the Irish Sea forget all the amazing things that happened this year.

We also mustn't forget that although South Africa won the series when it came to actual match victories, we can at least claim SOME bragging rights in that we scored more points, more tries, AND had fewer players banned, so THERE!!!

And with the Geech announcing this tour as his swansong, I'd say few could argue if I put the name Declan Kidney forward as presumptive coach of the 2013 tour Down Under...

Though as we all know, from a world standpoint, the rugby season NEVER actually ends, and in just two weeks the Tri-Nations kicks off in Auckland with the first Bledisloe Cup encounter. In previous years I have cheered for the Saffers in this tournament…I think it’s high time I switched allegiance to the Wallabies. That’s what I call justice ;-)

Ireland-14 England-13

ALMIGHTY BOD

Back in July 08, right before this season began I did a post entitled “How Will BO’D be remembered?”

I asserted that our esteemed international rugby captain should in no way be assured of a starting spot on the Lions at the time and the thrust of my argument was in this statement :

…I believe the upcoming season is crucial for BO’Ds legacy. He needs a string of outstanding performances, he needs his name regularly in the back page headlines, he needs to be the inspiration to meaningful silverware for his teams.

Well we had the wonder try against Wasps. A clever little shimmy to go over versus France. A sprint the length of the field in Rome.

And on Saturday, the pièce de résistance to grace Ireland’s Six Nations swansong from Croker – an 80 minute display that was rugby’s answer to cricket’s “a captain’s innings”. So now I can’t see how McGeechan could possibly leave him behind.

Sure, ROG wasn’t at the races with the boot. If his misses had gone over it would have been a 12-point victory just like I predicted. But if this is a team which has its eyes on winning it all, it needs to know it can do so even when we’re not firing on all cylinders.

You didn’t have to be wise enough not to put tomatoes in fruit salads to know that England were going to do all they could to frustrate us on the day, and in my view, they did a pretty good job of it all told.

Our skipper seemed to bear the brunt of their attention. First Flutey rings his bell. Then Armitage gave him a block which had me out of my chair ranting and raving at the television screen, though sadly I wasn’t able to persuade the ref to produce his card.

But despite O’Driscoll constantly holding his head, he wasn’t afraid to put it down and charge at the English defence to touch down for the match-winning score, which turned out to be the difference.

And as for his drop goal…well if the sheer opportunism made it sweet, the execution made it sublime. I don’t get the rules of rugby enough though – seemingly there would have been a yellow card for an Englishman if he had missed? Surely if there’s an infringement worthy of a card it should be issued regardless???

Now…as for overall performance, well, I really hope that Declan Kidney has seen enough of Paddy Wallace to realise he’s not the man to have at centre. To bring home this particular bacon, it’s time to reunite Drico and Darce.

Remember, it was the Ulsterman who coughed up the ball late on and it eventually led to their try which made it so close. So he’s had his 80 minutes now, coach, ok?

Other than that, I see no reason for this team not to remain focused and get the job done in both Edinburgh and Cardiff. And nice and all though the Grand Slam may be, I don’t know about you but the Championship itself would do me just fine.

It looks like my 40th birthday, which is the day the potential Six Nations decider between Wales and Ireland is played, is going to be one hell of a day.

Italy-9 Ireland-38

USE THE FORCE (THAT IS) LUKE!!!

So what if it wasn’t pretty – we got the win, we got the points difference, and in my opinion, we also got a valuable lesson about the way our team should play.

Luke Fitzgerald is a natural talent. He has the potential to be every bit the player Shane Williams is if not more, since he is just as much at home at centre as he is on the wing. So why the hell do both Leinster and Ireland seem to be going out of their way to avoid giving him the ball???

Now I’m not one to pat myself on the back when I make a correct sports prediction…

Yeah, I couldn’t get away with that last sentence, could I? Especially since I am SO going to pat myself on the back…

When O’Gara went off the pitch with his yellow card on the half hour mark, I predicted that Luke would score a try while he was gone. Why? Because there was bound to be more central opportunities for him with only six behind the scrum, that’s why.

And lo and behold, who was there to take the pass from Stephen Ferris for the all important second try?

Then in the second half, he was carted back out on the wing, and he had to use his own intuition to create the chance for the score which put the result beyond doubt.

Now hear this, Messrs Kidney and Cheika –FITZGERALD IS A TRY-SCORING MACHINE and he MUST be included in your offensive strategy more often. It’s been all very well up to now, but with big games coming up against England, Wales and further down the line Harlequins, it would be a crying shame to see his kit continuously unspoiled.

I mean, if you had to nitpick at the result from Rome yesterday, you’d say that we had to rely on interceptions and opportunism for the five-pointers we got, so the result could have been very different.

Yes, I know that Masi should have been redcarded for his shocking clothesline tackle on Kearney in the first minute, but as it turned out it was better he stayed on the pitch because it gave us a better sense of how this team plays together fifteen on fifteen.

I would also suggest that Kidney admits that the Paddy Wallace at centre experiment just hasn’t worked. Every time I remember him with the ball it was as though he grasped it in desperation and closed his eyes waiting for contact. He even got himself a shiner to prove just how effective that policy is.

If the coaching brains trust doesn’t believe Luke is ready to partner Drico in the centre, then surely Gordon d’Arcy is ready for battle by now?

And if provincial inclusion is the problem, there is plenty of Ulster contribution in Ferris and Bowe – I wouldn’t replace either – and if your man Tom Court can play at No3 then I’d be more than happy to leave John Healy stranded on 91 caps because he appears to be addicted to giving away needless penalties.

Maybe it’s also time to swap the Munster scrum-halfs back around and let Stringer start…it could be argued that O’Leary’s poor distribution is one of the reasons the ball isn’t making it as far as our pacy wingers more often.

When all is said and done, we’ve four points, we’re top of the pile, and with a few tweaks here and there, we’ll have the English shaking in their boots in a fortnight. We have to start believing that we can actually win this thing, and to do that we can’t rely on the opposition handing us easy scores.

Click the headline beneath the photo for RTE's official writeup

Ireland-30 France-21

Click here for RTE's report

WE’RE BACK

Just in case you were unfortunate enough to watch RTE’s coverage, allow me to tell you what really happened at Croke Park.

While the boys were Montrose were glowing about what a wonderful game of rugby this was for the neutral, the rest of us were on the edge of our seats hoping we’d be able to hold on and fair play to Declan Kidney’s men, we did it.

And as for George Hook suggesting this result was Munster-driven…eh, the tries were scored by who? Man-of-the-match Heaslip, O’Driscoll and d’Arcy with Rob Kearney playing a virtually flawless no 15? Do me a favour, mate!

Of course it is natural to compare this performance with what we would have expected from a team led by Eddie O’Sullivan. That’s simple – the fifteen men in green yesterday were able to adapt to the team they were playing, whereas in recent Six Nations campaigns we’ve never been able to deviate from our plan at kickoff.

Having said that, I had serious reservations about our plan at the kickoff of this match. I counted four times in the first twenty minutes that Tomas O’Leary kicked the ball away from the base of the ruck – I couldn’t see the reasoning behind putting the ball in the hands of any French side no matter how experimental.

So although nobody at our state-run broadcaster seemed to think the final pass to Harinordoquy was forward for the visitor’s first try, the score seemed to justify my confusion at the wisdom of surrendering the ball so easily.

But where in the past the kicks would have more than likely continued, we managed to adapt, and for the first time in I don’t know how long we looked like scoring every time we won possession in their 22, which it has to be said is the hallmark of a side capable of winning it all.

And what stunning tries they were, each and every one of them. Perhaps the French may question their own tackling, but you only have to watch the determination of the scorers crossing the line to see that it would have taken quite an effort to stop them from anyone.

Add to this my assertion that BOTH French tries were fortunate (although the final execution of their second try was exquisite, the move began with the ball yet again falling kindly for Harinordoquy) PLUS the fact that O’Gara wasn’t exactly 100% with his kicking, I’d argue that we could have won by more on the day.

I mean – the signs are all good; this French team will only get better so this was the best time to play them, and if we can produce four more displays like this one and avoid injuries, we have as much a chance in this tournament as anyone else, even the Welsh.

So what if Tom McGuirk and his merry men would be happy to see us lose all five once the overall rugby was entertaining? Hopefully Kidney’s army will appreciate the real fans are fully behind them to succeed whatever the cost.

Ireland-55 Canada-0

CANADIANS GET HOCKEYED

Whatever you do, don’t try and enjoy any success when George Hook is around.

The facts – Ireland passed the ball around, scored loads of tries and comfortably put away far inferior opposition.

The Hook verdict? We were as bad as we were under Eddie O’Sullivan. I’m starting to think the man isn’t only blind when it comes to distinguishing colours.

Sure, things weren’t perfect. But surely a brand new coach is allowed to have things in his first game in charge go less than perfect? And surely a final scoreline of 55-0 isn’t to be sneezed at whatever way the players arrived at it?

One thing I will agree with George on was that if the ticket prices were high as reports suggest, that is an absolute disgrace. Considering the fact that Canada were so much further down the rankings, the loyal Munster fans deserved a lower entrance fee, and the unusual sight of several empty seats at Thomond Park could have been avoided.

And of course the horrendous conditions didn’t help matters much. It looked like one of those nights you wanted to forget about the game and go home to a cup of hot cocoa and the telly.

As for the two controversial tries, I think Kearney’s definitely was, while Heaslip’s (see pic) definitely wasn’t.

Maybe another criticism of Kidney was leaving on O’Gara for so long, but I suppose watching Wallace’s performance it’s understandable and we’ll just all have to hope and pray that ROG avoids injury, at least until the end of the 6 Nations!!!

So when you consider that Scotland we soundly defeated at the same time, if think the days results were the best possible for Ireland all things being considered.

Sure, there was precious little you could take from this game to bring into the clash with the All Blacks next week, but maybe a baptism of fire will do Kidney’s men good.

Unlike Mr Hook however, I’d like to retain a measure of belief that the man may just cometh when the hour does.