Advertisement
©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
in cold blood

Kearney demands greater 'killer instinct'

The in-form fullback says Ireland were just ‘one or two percent’ from victory in Paris.

WITH YET ANOTHER impressive 80 minutes behind him, Rob Kearney is fast looking like a natural leader of Ireland.

And with Paul O’Connell ruled out for the remainder of the tournament we need every leader we can get.

Yesterday, Kearney echoed the sentiment of O’Connell, saying that a draw is not a result to celebrate over.

When proposed with the idea of 17-17 being a good result, Kearney sternly told IrishRugby.ie:

“I don’t really buy that and I’d like to think that none of my team-mates do either.”

“We knew we were good enough to win and we can’t start taking this mindset that it was a good result, a good effort; ‘the Irish fought hard again’, because we’re coming second best and we’re not going to be a competitive team that achieves if we take that attitude.”

In the Stade de France, Ireland put in a massive defensive effort and led 17-6 at half time, only to be pegged back to 17-17 in the the third quarter of the game.

O’Connell had earmarked the importance of scoring first in the second half, but Ireland did not score at all despite spending a prolonged period with posession in or around the France 22.

Belief

Coming off the field wondering ‘what might have been’ is something any athlete in any sport wants to avoid and Kearney bemoaned the missed opportunity to tag on a score which may have proved crucial.

“We’re a good team. We have a lot of strong belief, we know what we can achieve, we know that on our day we can muscle up with some of the best teams in the world. And we did that,”

“It’s just that the margins are so small…I think we might have lacked that one or two percent of a killer instinct in us. These games are tiny margins and if we get another one percent of a killer instinct, we can close these games off.”

Kearney will have had his thoughts trained on this Saturday when Scotland visit the Aviva Stadium looking for their third win over Ireland in four attempts since 2010. He added,

“If we have that inner desire and inner belief that we can beat anyone in the world, then we will. It all starts with mentality, I think.”

Opinion: O’Connell absence will prove more disruptive than O’Driscoll’s

Evans named on Scotland bench following assault accquital