RORY BEST WOULD have been among the most relieved of the Ireland squad after they convincingly brought to an end their winless run yesterday.
With Joe Schmidt’s Ireland, the collective always accepts the glory and the criticism, but it is obvious that Best would have taken more of the negativity on his shoulders in recent weeks in his role as captain.
Replacing Paul O’Connell was never going to be easy and tougher times lie ahead yet, but last night would have allowed Best to put the feet up with some satisfaction about Ireland’s first win with him in the leadership role.
“It’s obviously been a tough championship and to get a win today… it was nice to get the win and not be standing here trying to justify what we’ve been doing,” said Best after Ireland’s 58-15 victory over Italy.
“Obviously there have been, throughout the championship, aspects of the performance that we’re pleased with and other aspects we know need to be a lot better going forward.
Just to get the win, it’s nice to be in a changing room where boys are enjoying themselves. It’s something that we talked about yesterday, that this was a special championship and a special championship to play in.
“It’s something that a lot of the boys hadn’t had experience in, it’s an unbelievable championship to go out and get a result in. To do that and score 50 points, you’ve got to be pleased.”
This certainly has been a tricky Six Nations campaign for Ireland and while the big win over Italy will not remove the regrets Ireland have over defeats to France and England, as well as the draw with Wales, the pressure lifted yesterday.
Nine tries and some superb running rugby on a beautiful day in Dublin sent Ireland’s support home happy and Schmidt will have felt his selection calls were justified.
Confidence has appeared to be an issue for Ireland since their World Cup exit at the hands of Argentina last year, but this victory can be the first building block to regaining belief levels ahead of the June tour to South Africa.
“When you score tries and score points, it does lift the confidence,” said Best. “I think that when you look at the way we’ve started games, I don’t think confidence is a massive issue, outside of not getting the wins we wanted to.
“We’ve been prepared and ready to go in all the games so far. The frustrating thing for us has been looking back at them and especially two weeks ago when we looked back at that England game. We looked at some of the chances we created, and areas of the game that have served us so well over the last few years, we just weren’t good enough at.
There’s an element of new guys coming in. When you’re on the outside and you’re playing provincial and European rugby, you think it’s just another step to international.
“But I think some boys have found that it’s a big, big step. It’s a big step from playing international and then another step to winning international rugby.
“Scoring points is great, but for us the wee small areas we worked on… obviously Italy were definitely had their injury problems and we got more time and space, but our control of the ball and control of the ball in the opposition 22 was something we felt let us down against England. We were better at it today.”
