Ireland wary of 'hungry' Scots gatecrashing Croke Park party

Published on Friday 19 March 2010 22:19

SCOTLAND have made a real impression on Ireland despite failing to win a game in the RBS Six Nations Championship this season, or the leading figures behind last season's Irish Grand Slam were at their most cute on the eve of today's Croke Park finale.

Declan Kidney, the Ireland coach, is renowned as a straight-talking character, a quiet-spoken man who came through the Irish game from its roots, through schools and youth rugby to the top post, meeting great success with modest words at most levels on the way. His captain, Brian O'Driscoll, can be quite the opposite, a big character in every sense, voluble, head-strong and invariably smiling, but manifestly unhappy and narky when things don't go his way.

The pair dovetailed neatly yesterday, however, in their final media conference before saying goodbye to Croke Park, nestled in the hotel immediately across the road from the famous stadium that will return to its Gaelic roots in exclusivity next year as rugby returns to Lansdowne Road.

O'Driscoll was bullish in stating that he had not considered the possibility of the ending becoming a damp squib if they lose, but was equally forthright in stating that Irish supporters should not underestimate the threat posed by Andy Robinson's Scotland in seeking their first win of the championship.

"You have to have a completely positive mindset and we are thinking of Scotland as another obstacle in our way to obtaining some silverware," he said. "There's no point in contemplating defeat. You just have to think about the process of winning and, hopefully, the result will take care of itself. But he (Robinson] has done a great job. He did a great job in Edinburgh, turned them around, got them playing some great stuff and made them very difficult to beat, and likewise, he has a similar policy with Scotland – building defensively, with a very strong work ethic.

"It's a good foundation to build from, your defence, and he's got them playing some good stuff at times. Perhaps they've been a bit unfortunate with a few results, but you only have to look back to November, when they managed to beat Australia. They are capable of big performances when the occasion arises and I'm sure they'll see this as a big occasion and a big opportunity."

Kidney, unsurprisingly, spoke of only taking "one game at a time", in his under-stated balanced way of showing the loss to France in Paris and a possible second Grand Slam on the trot meant no more or less than the prospect of finishing the tournament with the Triple Crown.

"We've always taken one game at a time and if that leads to some silverware that would be a huge bonus," he said. "We lost in Paris and at some stage we'll lose another match. Now we have to go out and play against a good Scots team, who drew with England and, if you take a good look at it, were ten points up with five minutes to go against Wales, and with five seconds left there was a kick-off and Wales to their credit got a try. But there was nothing in those matches and we know when we played England we were fortunate enough to get away with three minutes to go.

"We need to really narrow in and concentrate to get the better of what I believe is a very good Scots team that has improved no end and has lots of points to prove. They now have three or four forwards who were unavailable to them this time last year when we played them, and we only managed to break them down once in scoring a try.

"If a Triple Crown comes out of it (today's game] that would be brilliant, but all you have to do is look at the history of the Triple Crown to see how hard it is to win these matches. We've won two and history has shown that we've lost more of these tight third matches than we've won. That's how difficult it is to win it.

"We have to make sure we get off to a good start and take it from there. If at the end of it there's something, that will be brilliant, but it will only be as a consequence of focusing in properly on that first few minutes."

Kidney is speaking from a position of confidence, even if he rarely shows it. His team have won 12 of their last 14 Test matches, beating all of the Six Nations opponents as well as South Africa and drawing with Australia thanks to a last-gasp try that told us all we needed to know about the desire remaining in a side already crowned Grand Slam champions. We were speaking ahead of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, which later gripped interest across Ireland, but one could imagine what the 50-year-old from Cork might have said had he been told the only two-horse race in town didn't quite turn out that way. Kauto Star was as heavily backed a favourite as is his rugby team today, but Irish jockey Ruby Walsh endured a rough ride before being unseated altogether.

Kidney is not only aware that that is what Scotland plan to do to Ireland's Triple Crown bid and Croke Park send-off later today, but insisted it could happen.

"I don't think there's going to be much in it at the end of the day," he added. "They (the Scots] are very big men, hugely physical and very direct, and they are hungry. You can't coach hunger, that's something that's either in players or not in players, but the way that their players have kept themselves fit from a match like last week's and all turned up shows the hunger that's in them to get a result here.

"They have always been hugely proud, be it to stop us from winning or to have an away win. Everybody will look for their own little bits of motivation and the Scots are no different to ourselves. This Scottish team, when you see them turning up for work again this week, you know they are on the verge of something. We just have to make sure it's not this weekend."

The Irish eyes were smiling, a twinkle revealing that Kidney knows the benefit of talking up the opposition, feeding false hopes perhaps, before pulling the rug from under them. But the former maths teacher is a shrewd tactical thinker and he left to add the finishing touches to his plans with the reminder that sport is rarely as predictable as it might seem.