After tootling along on the road to glory, with a few miss-fires along the way, the Ireland engine gave up the ghost yesterday with a cough and a splutter as an MOT ready France zoomed past without needing to engage top gear!
That Ireland managed to close the gap at the end had more to do with France putting it in neutral and coasting for the line than any of the highly tuned Irish components actually firing in unison.
The question for the Ireland management team is, “Will a simple re-tune correct the problem or do some of the components need replaced?”
Unfortunately, for Ireland, they have left any rebuild, in preparation for the World Cup, too late, preferring, in the past, to patch it up and push it out time and again, so it looks as though a bit of tuning of the available parts is the only realistic option.
Ireland’s issue is that some of their more exciting players can also be a bit of a liability. Outside of O’Driscoll, O’Connell, Heaslip, O’Brien and O’Gara ( and possibly Ferris) and I’ll maybe include Ross in that lot, the rest of the team . . .
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