February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Ireland 64
Fiji 17
Normally, this would have been the kind of fixture to send a shiver down Irish spines. What else has ever been the lot of Irish sides but to steamroll over the world champions one week only to get hockeyed by some shower of nobodies the next? Not this time, though. This time, Eddie O’Sullivan’s time, this time is different to what we have seen before. Ireland went out and were well-drilled, well-disciplined and compact and won the game, 64-17. Wouldn’t have happened back in the day.
But it happened here all right. And it happened because O’Sullivan has instilled a ruthlessness and hint of badness into Irish rugby. Yes, they were still passionate and, yes, they still played with the blazing fire of old Connemara whiskey (or whatever) burning in their bellies. But they also played some classy rugby, pulled the Fijians hither and thither with ease and grace and ran in nine tries. All that’s left for them now is to be as cool, calm and collected against Argentina next Saturday and the all time record for successive victories, six, will be equaled.
But that’s the road ahead. For now, a peek in the rear-view mirror is in order. Last Sunday needed to be the turkey shoot it turned out to be if this side is to have any credibility on the world stage. From Geordan Murphy’s opening try after four minutes (a beautiful effort, Murphy screaming onto Shane Horgan’s flipped pass) to Kevin Maggs’s rounding off of his hat trick deep in injury time, the whole afternoon was just about as perfect as they could have hoped for. Critics might grumble a little about the two late tries Fiji got on for, but that would be churlish in the extreme.
Maggs was the day’s outstanding performer, but Anthony Foley ran him mighty close. David Humphreys surpassed Jack Kyle’s record of 47 caps at outhalf and Brian O’Driscoll ran in his customary try to equal Brendan Mullins’s record total of 17. It can’t be long now before Ireland’s newest and winningest captain grabs that record all for himself.
Next up, Argentina, and in many ways this is much more important game than the Australian result a few weeks back. Whereas the Aussies will almost certainly be beyond Ireland’s reach at next year’s World Cup, Argentina will be in or around the same level. They’re physical and aggressive and they come to Dublin with the tag of world’s biggest party poopers. They hammered Italy last Saturday in Rome, both on the scoreboard and in the treatment room. They’ll be doing their best to repeat the feat on Saturday. For their part, Ireland have the little matter of Lens 1999 still to get out of their system. Should be fun.