If you’re idea of the perfect Sunday is to have time on your hands with a phone that doesn’t beep from morning till night then you will have something in common with the Ireland rugby squad. And if you do have to take a call, the last name in the world you want popping up in the window is that of your boss. Ditto the players, for the only ones who will be hearing from Joe Schmidt this morning are those getting bad news.
The coach got enough of that himself on Saturday. This is not 2007, when Ireland’s stumbling preamble led to a series of painful falls in the World Cup itself, but it’s not good that Ireland look a good deal off the pace they generated three weeks ago. Wales on the other hand, having not been able to locate the gearstick in the Millennium, came across all automatic yesterday and cruised through the game.
None of this will have any great bearing on the 31 names posted on the World Cup notice boardon Monday. At this stage of the game Schmidt was pretty clear about who he wanted to take, so only last minute collapses in form, or injury, would change his mind.
Most interest on Saturday focused on Luke Fitzgerald and how he would go at 13, a spot he has often spoken about but rarely seen up close. He went well enough before hobbling off with a glute injury close to the bone. The unfortunate Keith Earls meantime was taken off on a stretcher after apparently suffering a knockout blow, but was said to be lucid in the changing room afterwards, although with a sore jaw. Otherwise both Richardt Strauss (ankle) and Peter O’Mahony (arm) were not causing concern according to Schmidt.
His captain Paul O’Connell, playing his last game for Ireland in the Aviva – he aims to be back here with Toulon against Leinster in the Champions Cup later in December – was frustrated by the 14 penalties given away. Plus two free kicks. Wales were a lot tidier, on eight, and no free kicks.
“No doubt about it the discipline was an issue and giving them repeated cracks at you is a tough way to play the game,” O’Connell said. “There was a certain number of things we wanted to improve on after the Scotland game and we didn’t do that. And I’m sure we’ll be reminded of that a few times in the run up to the England game.”
Iain Henderson was the best Ireland player on the field, though Nathan White didn’t do so badly either despite the scrum issues – which clearly Schmidt saw differently to referee Craig Joubert – and was described by the coach as having been “very, very good.” White, that is.
You don’t go from that status on the Sunday to a non-starter on the Monday, so that would seem to be the end for the moment for Leinster tight head Marty Moore who was unfit to play for his province on Friday night. The squad is likely to read as follows:
Backs (14): R Kearney, T Bowe, L Fitzgerald, K Earls,
J Payne, R Henshaw, S Zebo, D Kearney, J Sexton, P Jackson, I Madigan; C Murray, E Reddan, I Boss.
Forwards (17): C Healy, J McGrath, M Ross, N White, M Bent, R Best, S Cronin, R Strauss, P O’Connell, D Toner, D Ryan, I Henderson, P O’Mahony, S O’Brien, C Henry, J Murphy, J Heaslip
Brendan Fanning writes for Ireland’s Sunday Independent