O'Sullivan wants clinical Ireland
Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan wants his side to be at their clinical best by the time the RBS 6 Nations championship rolls into town in February.
Ireland – with 11 frontline players in the sickbay, including talismanic captain Brian O’Driscoll (shoulder) and Lions lock Paul O’Connell (hand) – blew hot and cold in their final autumn international yesterday.
Yet four second-half tries saw them run out comfortable 43-12 winners over Romania in the end.
O’Sullivan admitted his side’s first win of the season was undoubtedly “a good day” – most notable for young Ulster centre Andrew Trimble’s brace of tries – but there is still much work to do on Ireland’s new “expansive” rugby before Italy pay Lansdowne Road a visit on February 4.
O’Sullivan said of the Romanian win: “What did I learn? I suppose I learned the positives – we’ve got some young players with a bit of experience now.
“Andrew Trimble has two good caps under his belt. Denis Leamy and Johnny O’Connor are coming on. Gordon D’Arcy is coming back to form after a very difficult year.
“I learned that our defence has improved week after week. Our scrummaging has improved. We are trying to play a more expansive game and hold on to the football but we have to be a lot more accurate.
“I think we’re doing the hard job of actually causing problems for the defence but we’re careless at the key moment of putting in the key passes.
“If we’re going to be successful we’re going to have to be more clinical in those situations.”
Veteran fly-half David Humphreys, who captained his country yesterday for the fifth time and kicked 13 points, was satisfied with the result.
“In any game of international rugby when you score six tries and over 40 points, you’ve got to be reasonably satisfied,” he said.
“I thought there were some areas of our execution and accuracy where we let ourselves down but we’re reasonably happy with that result.”
The form of the 21-year-old Trimble, who was filling O’Driscoll’s number 13 shirt, drew the plaudits from Humphreys and his Ulster half-back partner Kieran Campbell, who made his first start for Ireland yesterday.
Humphreys added: “I think from an Ulster point of view, Andrew has been our outstanding back this season. He’s a confidence type of player and hopefully this will add to it and he’ll score a few more tries for us (Ulster) in the next few weeks.”
London-born scrum half Campbell, who qualifies for Ireland by virtue of his Donegal father, said of his third cap: “I was delighted to get almost a full 80. It was an experience I really enjoyed, it was great to get a chance to run out with the team and to get a chance to show my wares as well.”
On a day when Ulster boasted six representatives in the Irish 15, Campbell was particularly pleased as his provincial colleagues – Humphreys, Trimble and Neil Best – accounted for 28 of the 43 points.
“The (Ulster) boys are delighted with that but I thought it was a good team effort all round. It was great to get to play with your own Ulster counterparts but I thought as a team we knitted together pretty well and I’m delighted for the lads – especially Andrew – that got themselves on the scoreboard.”
