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Tony Marshall/EMPICS Sport
Six Nations 2012

Six Nations: Kidney: Ross injury was the turning point

Declan Kidney was making no excuses for Ireland’s poor showing against England at Twickenham, and said his side would have lessons to learn.

IRELAND COACH DECLAN KIDNEY was offering up no excuses for Ireland’s shambolic performance in losing to England at Twickenham on Saturday.

The Irish scrum, in particular, performed atrociously as Stuart Lancaster’s side overran the visitors and romped to a 30-9 victory.

“We turned over the ball a lot and that led to scrums, and we were in trouble in the scrums a lot. It didn’t help that Mike (Ross) picked up an injury fifteen minutes before he actually went off,” Kidney told RTE after the match.

When he was asked why Ireland had experienced so much difficulty in the scrum, the former Munster coach responded: “When Mike’s shoulder went and that put us under pressure, then Tom (Court) came on and he’s been playing more as a loosehead. The English experience meant they could drive home on it and for us a few things came home to roost.

“Rugby is a very simple game. If your scrum is dominant you’re fine but if your scrum is in trouble you’re going to have a bad day, and today we had a bad day of it.

“We’re very disappointed. It’s St. Patrick’s Day and we wanted to represent everybody to the best of our ability, but today we fell short of that and that is not something that I feel very proud of.

“We’re extremely disappointed with the way that it’s finished, and to only get two wins and a draw. We were comprehensively beaten today and we have to hold our hands up to that.

“You can learn plenty of lessons from defeat and there’s plenty we can learn from today. We’ll take it all on board and act as quickly as we can.”

How Ireland rated against England >

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