British & Irish Lions
• British & Irish Lions tour Australia in 2013
Ireland Rugby
Ireland for the Cup?
Surely not, do you dare even whisper those words, think Green vs Black, Northern Hemisphere vs Southern, think an Ireland vs All Blacks final to the Rugby World Cup?
If the commitment shown at Croke park against England is absolutely anything to go by, then Ireland must be in the top three in the world?
They exposed England in a scoreline, that if we’re brutally honest flattered the English (there should have been another foreign sports score in Croke Park – a cricket one!).
So what made Ireland so great on Saturday?
Variation! Varying from pure agressive forward power, a kicking policy at outside half and the midfield genius that is O’Driscoll and D’Arcy. Top that off with the strength and skill of Horgan and you have something to be reckoned with!
What happened?
Dempsey’s try was genius, a flick by D’Arcy, and a perfect delivery from O’Driscoll and Dempsey was home-free over the line.
The power exhibited by O’Connels forwards pinned England down and stopping them from building anything (a shame they couldn’t nail this against France, they might have coped without O’Driscoll had they managed to do so!).
Then there’s O’Gara, on form again. He looked nervous against France – no hint of that at Croke Park against England. His unbelievable accuracy with pin point cross kit to Horgan in the 65th, was just one example of what he can achieve.
Scotland (a triple crown) and Italy left then. There was no slow build up for this Ireland side in the Six Nations they had to take it on the full, and now they must use the remaining games to prepare and fine-tune for the World Cup.
So the World Cup, they’ve shown they can play at a level most opponents would back away from. But they have to get consistency and deliver that each and every time!