Ireland fail to live up to their billing as world beaters

THE age old regime of ‘Guts ‘n’ Glory’ has come back to haunt Joe Schmidt (below) and his Irish team in 2017. Just when we thought those days were long gone.

We have England now left in our sights, next weekend, but rather than a Championship Showdown as we imagined, it will be Ireland trying to pilfer English pockets. It does not really matter if we win or lose against our oldest enemy.

This Irish team has failed on the front it needed to get a result — in being cold-bloodedly consistent. On Friday evening last we lost to the Welsh, just as we lost to the Scots last month, by not being sufficiently professional in either action or thought on the field.

In the Millennium Stadium the team also showed that it is as far away as ever from truly living with the giants of world rugby. Not every day of the week — which every team has to do if they truly seek greatness. We have beaten Australia, South Africa and the mighty All Blacks, but in our own neck of the woods against our neighbours, we have fallen into bad habits.

On Friday evening the team relied far too heavily on the pairing of Jonny Sexton and Conor Murray, both of whom were knocked about the place in Cardiff (and Murray knocked out of the game). Our performance was error strewn, rattled with selfdoubt, and just like the old and half-forgotten days we were relying almost exclusively on guts in order to get the result we desired.

Can you say it ain’t so Joe?