Six Nations: Ireland are in it to win it
For a country which has only won the Six Nations once in the last 27 years, Irish rugby fans find themselves strangely ambivalent about what the country’s goals and strategy for this year’s tournament should be. Ireland have never really been a “four-year cycle” team in the way that France and often England are, using the Six Nations to blood new recruits and build for a shot at World Cup glory. But that sense of an opportunity missed still lingers after October’s quarterfinal defeat against Wales. Coupled with the aging profile of the squad, and the blossoming of some younger talents, there are plenty who believe that now is the time to try something new.
Any hopes that Ireland coach Declan Kidney might introduce some new faces to the squad were stamped out pretty quickly when he announced his team to face Wales in Ireland’s opening game. Thirteen of the players who started that quarter-final in Wellington keep their place; the squad’s captain and supreme leader Brian O’Driscoll misses the entire tournament to have surgery on a shoulder injury which threatens to cut short the final act of a brilliant career; and Ronan O’Gara, the tournament’s all-time leading points scorer, has been dislodged again by Jonny Sexton.
The team selection removes all doubt: Ireland are in it to win it. Are they good enough? Well, we’ll know soon enough. Ireland’s first two games -- at home to Wales on Sunday and against France in Paris the following Saturday -- are the ones which will define their chances. Forget about a six-week tournament; increasingly, for the men in green, this looks like it might become a six-day tournament.
That’s not to dismiss the improvements made by Scotland and Italy, or the challenge posed by a trip to face England in Twickenham. But if Ireland are to have any chance of adding another Six Nations title to their haul, they will need to hit the ground running with back-to-back wins.
Spirits will be high in the Aviva Stadium on Sunday. The talk of revenge is already in the air, as Warren Gatland noted this week. But equally as important is the trip to Paris, a place where Ireland have not won since a boyish O’Driscoll burst onto the scene with a hat-trick in 2000.
But this time around, BOD will be watching from the sidelines as Keith Earls, his deputy at outside centre, tries to fill the biggest jersey in Irish rugby.
It’s a thankless task, but somebody’s got to do it.
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