This woman arrives home after borrowing her husband’s brand new Mercedes Benz. She walks into the kitchen looking a bit dishevelled and announces that she has some good news and some bad news. The husband elects for the good news first. She says “your airbags work really, really well...”
There was good news and bad news from yesterday’s match at Thomond Park – the good news was that nobody got seriously injured on either side, but the bad news was that Ireland gained absolutely no advantage in terms of what the best mix would be to play against the New Zealanders next Saturday. The term Test did not apply to yesterday’s game of rugby. Under the trade descriptions act this one would be thrown out. Canada performed like a bunch of mildly obstinate bag-holders who were completely out-classed by an Ireland side that barely got out of second gear.
Precipitation rather than a collection of plumbers, posties and pirates presented a greater threat to Ireland’s cohesion and fluidity. From the IRB’s perspective it is important that teams outside the world’s top 10 do get a chance to play and test themselves against the top teams. Fiji, Tonga and Samoa have realised belatedly that the only way they have a chance is to amalgamate. Canada do not have that luxury and also suffer from having a shallow pool of players, a large geographical spread and, of course, a chronic shortage of funding. The outcome from one of these “Tests” is a serious injury as professional players who are vastly superior in terms of physical and strength conditioning push the pace against tiring players who are hopelessly outclassed. Player safety in this instance is of a higher priority than revenue generation and it will at some stage come to a situation when an ‘A’ World Cup will have to be instituted. Canada have had a proud history in some of the previous World Cups but that on the evidence of yesterday’s match has come to a full stop.
Canada were very, very poor yesterday. They could not pour piss out of a shoe even if the instructions were written on the heel. Their pack struggled manfully but they were hopelessly inadequate, couldn’t string any phases together, couldn’t protect their ball and never managed a significant line-break or some forward momentum of any consequence. Winning line-out ball or scrum ball just isn’t what the game is about any more. That finished about 15 years ago and their halves Ed Fairhurst and Ander Monro struggled to impose any pattern or bring their three-quarters into play. As a result, Ireland won this match unopposed and, unfortunately, gained nothing from it.
I’m not sure why Kidney emptied his entire bench so earl. Was he trying to be too cute so that New Zealand could garner nothing from video analysis? Or did he really need to see Peter Stringer for the 85th time. From the start of the second half, Ireland completely lost their concentration and, with the introduction of the bench, their shape was lost too which was disappointing if you had paid full price for your ticket.
What do we know now that we didn’t already know on Friday? I wanted to see how Les Kiss had moulded Ireland’s new defensive combinations. I never got to find out. Gert Small’s influence was very hard to divine in a match where the opposition presented minimal pressure.
Ireland’s back row looked reasonably efficient and Stephen Ferris, for such a young player, was physically ebullient, imposed himself in every area of contact and ran with purpose and effect. Jamie Heaslip too was back to his athletic best and some of his interventions where he had the luxury of staying on the wide outside were difficult to contain. Shane Jennings had an uneven game and we are still not certain whether Kidney plans to use him in what could be the vital personal tussle next week against Richie McCaw. It’s very hard to ascertain where Kidney is going to go. Nor do we know anything about how our new coach intends to play the new ELVs.
Ireland’s back three looked very good but, again, minimal pressure was applied here. Keith Earls looked sharp and unbothered with all the fuss about his debut. He had the perfect start to his career, when good hands and straight running from Luke Fitzgerald and Brian O’Driscoll got him over after three minutes. He showed a little bit of positional uncertainty twice in and around the 20th minute, brought on more by poor Canadian kicking rather than any quality of pressure. He is good enough to play against New Zealand: Kidney’s call. Rob Kearney was outstanding in every phase of play. Tommy Bowe too looked impressive but we’ll have a better idea when he is put under pressure by a side who know how to close down space and chase their kicks with real menace.
O’Driscoll, although stating that he has been rejuvenated with a change in the coaching ticket, did not look fully physically fit and even when he got the opportunity to get on the ball or get into supporting positions you could see him easing up. I’m not sure whether it’s his knee or his hamstring but hopefully he will be right for next Saturday.
A 17-point haul in the second half tells you much about the disjointed nature of this match and Ireland’s inability to push home the advantage really puts them on the back foot in terms of trying to gear up for next week.
PS It was heart warming to see the huge amount of Canadian supporters who turned up for the match wearing red.

nfrancis@tribune.ie