ROB KEARNEY REMAINED optimistic that Ireland could still win the Six Nations Championship, despite a debilitating loss to England yesterday.
Speaking to reporters following the match, he said:
“Today was a chance to showcase our consistency, but it’s by no means panic stations, and we have to take confidence from the fact that this Championship is still wide open.
“Wales and France are by no means easy games that England still have to play.”
Kearney said his side were unfortunate to come away with a loss, given that there was so little between the teams.
“It was a nasty day. I think they played the tactics a little bit better on the day. They were marginally better and marginally smarter. So the margins are tiny.”
He continued: “It was one of those games where we were better off not having the ball. I saw a stat where we had 58 per cent of the possession, but that’s not necessarily a good thing all of the time.“Especially on a day like today, it proved the team with less possession won.”
And while Ireland endured a number of injuries during the game, Kearney suggested such bad luck was inevitable.
“You always have a lengthy injury list after these Tests. It’s the nature of rugby – it’s getting more physical. That’s why we’re happy to have a week’s break.
“We generally tend to recover quickly and I’m fully confident we’ll be ready to go again on Monday week for a big game in Murrayfield.”
His teammate Mike Ross indicated the bad weather was largely to blame for the side’s regular mishaps.
“I don’t think we ever got into a multi-phase game. The conditions were difficult. We just spilled the ball too many times.“It certainly wasn’t ideal underfoot conditions. You couldn’t afford to push off too hard [in the scrum]. You had to dig in underneath.
“But once both packs adjusted to that, there weren’t too many collapsed scrums.”
Despite the bad result, Ross added that he was relieved at not enduring a similar experience to the scrum problems that occurred the last time the two teams met in the Six Nations.
“After last year, we had a bit of a nightmare, so it’s a good improvement. It’s something we’ve all worked on hard during the week, because we knew, if you have a bad day at the office in the scrum, especially in conditions like today, it suddenly becomes a position of penalties, and go forward, and points accumulation for the opposite team.”
Ross said he was not looking forward to the Ireland team’s upcoming detailed video analysis of the game, and repeated Kearney’s view that the Championship was far from over.
“We probably should have pressed home our advantage more, but we didn’t due to our own failings, so it’s going to be a long week in the video room.“But there’s another game against Scotland coming up, and as we’ve seen from this Championship so far, anything can happen.”
Craig Gilroy, meanwhile, also rued the minor but ultimately crucial errors that the team made.
“I think there was just a few silly mistakes,” he said. “England capitalised well and kicked the points.
“It was very physical, but at the same time, there wasn’t that much carrying. There was a huge amount of kicking and it was very stop-start.”
The Ulster winger also acknowledged that his involvement in the game was always going to be limited, owing to the poor conditions.
“It wasn’t a game for a winger and I just tried to not to get frustrated and do what I could to help.
“Last week was a huge win and it really got the momentum going.
“It was a one-score game, and we did believe that we could win, right until the very end, but unfortunately, we didn’t.”
