IRELAND COACH DECLAN Kidney took several positives away from his team’s 10-6 defeat to Scotland on Saturday, declaring he wants his squad to get as much playing time as possible over the coming weeks.
Mike McCarthy and Felix Jones made “good contributions” on their senior debuts, there were no new injury concerns for Kidney and his management team to contend with and both full-back Rob Kearney and hooker Jerry Flannery returned to first-team action.
Speaking after the game, Kidney said:
“We have a few bangs and knocks which will take a while to recover but we’ll get the fellas up and going again for next weekend. We want to get as many players playing as possible, whether that’s in Bordeaux against France (next weekend) or with their provinces.
“Overall I’m pretty pleased. We had some young players out there and you will only gain experience by playing matches. We have a match under our belts now and in future we’ll gain from that.”
The Corkman was also pleased to see Leinster back Kearney come through the Test unscathed. Speaking to the print edition of the Sunday Times, he said: “I know how he’s been running in training and I know where I was to go with it over the next week or two. So while he did cramp up at the end, he was confident that he could finish the 80 minutes.”
For further reaction from Kidney, see the print edition of the Sunday Times >>>
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