SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS

Ireland 34-13 Scotland: Bravery is not enough for Scots
Iain Morrison at Croke Park
IRELAND 34
SCOTLAND13
This was a deeply flawed performance from his side but at least the men in blue showed infinitely more fighting spirit than of late and, what's more – some sort of sacrifice to the gods is probably in order – they scored a try! The fact that Ireland scored five in reply suggests that Hadden's men still have some way to go.

Alasdair Strokosch enjoyed a barnstorming first start, giving warning that Jason White has a battle on his hands for that number six shirt. Ross Rennie was also blooded and the pugnacious little flanker opened his account by dump-tackling Brian O'Driscoll, which suggests that he took it all in his stride. And Scotland finally scored a try, a good one too. It came on 52 minutes after Andy Henderson and Simon Webster colluded to split the Irish defence but sadly, unlike London buses, it did not herald another three in its wake.

The Scots started superbly, running hard, going through the phases and generally looking totally unrecognisable from the side that sleep-walked throughout the opening two fixtures. The Scots' cause was aided and abetted by the Irish lineout, which wobbled all day. Starting hooker Bernard Jackman was replaced after just 44 minutes of the match which is never a good sign. In one early Scottish onslaught, Henderson and Rory Lamont combined on the right flank but the centre critically delayed his pass and a rare scoring opportunity was lost. Sadly, that is Scotland's problem in a nutshell. They failed to trouble the scoreboard when they had the whip hand in the opening quarter of the match and paid the price when the inevitable Irish fightback arrived. Chris Paterson might also like another chance to take that early pot at goal when instead he took a quick tap, although it is perhaps churlish to criticise his spirit of adventure.

But if the Scots were willing to chance their arm in attack, they were no match for the Irish when it came to downright ruthlessness in exploiting every opportunity. In their very first two forays into the Scottish 22 the Irish came away with points. A series of drives earned the home team a scrum under the Scottish posts and flanker David Wallace took an inside pass from Jamie Heaslip for the simplest of scores. The Scottish breakaways were missing in action.

Always kick a man when he is down, as the saying goes, and after suffering that body blow, the Scots took another to the kidneys minutes later. Blair cleared his lines only for the ball to be snaffled by Geordan Murphy, not the last time the Irish fullback cleaned up. The ball was recycled quickly and the field opened up for Brian O'Driscoll. With the Scots drawn like moths to his fame, the classy centre found Robert Kearney unmarked on the left flank for the winger to score in the corner. Ronan O'Gara kicked the touchline conversion as easily as he did the one in front of the sticks and all the Scots could manage were two Paterson penalties in reply.

The visitors did have a golden opportunity to eat into that Irish advantage immediately before half time but two five-yard set-piece attacking opportunities went west. The first was a close-range scrum after the blue forwards had battered their way right up to, but not quite over, the Irish line. The attacking scrum was shunted backwards at a rate of knots and while the Scots retained the ball, they did so 20 yards back from where they started.

The other chance came and went when yet another bout of indiscipline from Nathan Hines cost his side dear. A Scots' penalty five yards from the Irish line was reversed after the big lock took a swing at Denis Leamy. He was lucky to stay on the field and his lack of self control is fast overshadowing the good work he does on the right side of the law.

Having wasted their last opportunities before half-time, the Scots badly needed something immediately after the break to stay in this match but instead the Irish scored their third try within 40 seconds of the restart. The Scots have been utterly clueless at kick offs from the World Cup onwards and once again they allowed the Irish to steal a restart that O'Gara directed away from the forwards. When the ball was recycled, the stand-off flighted a crossfield kick straight into the mitts of Marcus Horan, who was lurking on the right wing.

The Scots' widest defender was Ross Ford and even he was miles away from the action. Late in the match his replacement Fergus Thomson could be seen patrolling the exact same channel, another glutton for punishment. When Webster scored on 52 minutes it looked like Hadden's men might make a real fight of this one but instead they continued to make too many elementary errors to put the Irish under any real pressure. O'Gara had slotted a penalty on 50 minutes and Tommy Bowe grabbed two late scores to give the scoreboard a slightly inflated feel.

Bowe's last try came in extra time which was badly needed after the Scots suffered several injuries to add to the insult of defeat. Prop Euan Murray walked off the field late on and he was replaced by Ford with the scrums uncontested thereafter.

More worrying for the Scottish medics was the fate of Jim Hamilton, who suffered a suspected broken leg despite having only been on the field for 10 minutes. He was stretchered off the field on a golf cart, a fitting metaphor perhaps for the woes surrounding this squad of players.

Ireland: G Murphy; T Bowe, B O'Driscoll (S Horgan 69), A Trimble, R Kearney; R O'Gara (P Wallace 77), E Reddan; M Horan, B Jackman (R Best 44), J Hayes (T Buckley 73), D O'Callaghan, M O'Driscoll (P O'Connell 52), D Leamy, J Heaslip (S Easterby 69), D Wallace.

Scotland: H Southwell; N Walker (D Parks 66) S Webster, A Henderson (N De Luca 69), R Lamont; C Paterson, M Blair (C Cusiter 71); A Jacobsen (G Kerr 71), R Ford (F Thomson 69), E Murray (R Ford 75), N Hines (J Hamilton 64), S MacLeod, A Strokosch, K Brown (R Rennie 45), A Hogg.

Scorers: Ireland – Tries: Wallace, Kearney, Horan, Bowe (2). Cons: O'Gara (3). Pen: O'Gara. Scotland – Try: Webster. Con: Paterson. Pens: Paterson (2)

Referee: Christophe Berdos (Fra)

Attendance: 74,234.

This article was posted on 24-Feb-2008, 08:26 by Hugh Barrow.