SINGING IN THE RAIN
Victory over the French keeps Joe Schmidt and his men in the hunt for an unlikely Six Nations title triumph
FROM Roman sun to Dublin drizzle, Ireland moved on in their ambitious quest to win a championship despite losing their opening match.
Yesterday the five-country title race was cut to three, Ireland edging France in a weather-affected squabble and Scotland, Joe Schmidt’s opening day nemesis, again pulling out all the stops in Edinburgh to leave Wales wilting.
Having slipped to third on the back of that early afternoon surprise, Schmidt’s troops did what they needed to do, their nine-point success vaulting them to the top, a temporary position you would imagine given the English have the hapless Italians visiting this afternoon.
It keeps alive the prospect of a winner-takes-all final day showdown at Lansdowne Road in mid-March. England versus Ireland with silverware to play for, a marketing man’s dream. However, with a trip to Wales first-up over the horizon on Friday week, Schmidt wasn’t looking too far just yet.
‘I probably haven’t done the math that far ahead just because we have tried to stay really focused in the immediate challenge,’ Schmidt said following an exhaustive battle where he described the coaches as being on the edge of their seats throughout.
‘The championship isn’t too
different with bonus points or not. Probably because we picked up that bonus point against Scotland, picked up that bonus point against Italy and England haven’t picked up a bonus point yet… they have had two super tough games, Wales away and France at home, and we have got Wales to come.
‘We’re not thinking about anything back here at the end of the championship yet, because it will a lot less to us if it’s not for the championship. That means we have to go to Wales and get a result,’ Schmidt (right) added.
Beating France will be a boost, particularly as this match didn’t have the heavy casualty list as happened in recent meetings. Indeed, the only player reported lame was Rob Kearney, slipping on the wet surface and straining an adductor muscle that will likely need a scan before getting the all-clear.
Better defence ensured Ireland’s latest slow start was far from as costly as it was in Edinburgh, 6-0 quite a result in contrast to the 21-5 deficit at the beginning of the month, and the wet weather had positive impact too, a knock on resulting in what could have been an early France try ruled out.
Ireland did suffer their share of handling errors but not enough for Schmidt to complain. ‘Talk about defence, one of our best defenders was probably the drizzle,’ he claimed. ‘It did make handling very, very difficult. It was maybe a 17th man on the back of a 16th man which was the crowd.’ Of the 15, Conor Murray had stood out but in Johnny Sexton he had an equally-willing partner whose latest comeback again flew in the face of fears he was being thrown into a situation he might not be best prepared for, after more than a month on the sidelines. That anxiety was misplaced. ‘In a measured way, he [Sexton] was really, really positive,’ beamed his coach. ‘We varied it up a bit in second half. We did feel we couldn’t use ourselves up too much and had to get them chasing things rather than chasing us.
‘I thought he did it superbly. A couple of great kicks behind them that allowed us to keep pressure on even though we didn’t have ball. He never shirks his defensive responsibilities anyway, so you knew the value he was going to give you.
‘We aimed to give him 50, 55 minutes, but with the nature of the game he got the wind knocked out of him and had a two-and-a-half minute rest, so gave him a little bit longer.’
It was 16-6 when he left, 19-9 when it was all over, the 10-point gap just about right.