Six Nations Launch

plan_r

Yesterday marked the launch of this years Six Nations Championships and with that comes the hope of absolution. The stain of the World Cup has been hard to shift and the return of our national team's bread and butter competition is most welcome. The sense of familiarity is soothing in the wake of a great Irish sporting disappointment. Perhaps it is the familiar February weather, or the renewed promise of a rousing Amhrán na bhFiann. Though the players publicly (most recently Girvan Dempsey in the Irish Times) state their need to look forward and bury the memory of France, I find it inconceivable that they do not view this as an opportunity to re-establish themselves as a team of dogged heart and exemplary skill sets.

(It's January. Two weeks until the Italians visit for the first game of our campaign. I know this feeling. Deja vu. I think we'll be there or thereabouts.)

This morning Brian O'Driscoll has stated that he feels the team has underachieved. Maybe they have. A bounce of a ball here or there may have altered that hindsight. As a devote supporter of our National team I find it somewhat disconcerting to hear O'Driscoll stating:

'The players have a point to prove only to themselves. You will always have hype and speculation but you can't control those things.'

I think they have a point to prove to their supporters, who felt the disappointment of the World Cup exit keenly. Not merely the failure to reach the quarter finals but the manner of the elimination. They are a professional outfit at the pinnacle of their powers and can bounce back. If you're sceptical refer to the form of Ronan O'Gara, Donnacha O'Callaghan, Peter Stringer, Denis Leamy et al for Munster in the Heineken Cup and although poor at Welford Road, in the home fixture against Toulouse, Leinster put in their performance of the season with many international stars back on the front foot.

'What you can control are your own performances. We are capable of great performances, we just need to produce them.' BOD

Exactly.

However, the impetus for this meandering was not the utterances of the Irish Team Captain but those of the Head Coach. Yesterday at the launch, held at The Hurlingham Club, London, Eddie O'Sullivan responded to questions relating to the security of his job and the forthcoming Six Nations campaign:

'There's more pressure on me now because we've come off the back of a World Cup that wasn't as successful as we'd hoped it would be," said O'Sullivan.

'I believe I got selection right during the World Cup because if I'd changed the team around would it have transformed our performance?' he said.

Perhaps he is being rhetorical. But if O'Sullivan really wanted to find out if a change of team selection would have altered our fortunes, maybe he should have changed his team selection (Logic is one of my great gifts). But because he resisted that temptation we can never know, or can we....?

'The answer to that is no because our performance at the World Cup wasn't based on poor selection, it was based on the fact we didn't play well as a unit.'

'Changing the unit around wouldn't have made any difference.

So where does that leave the team now? We will have to wait and see.
But lets don our scarves and hats and cheer and sing and clap (or shout at the television).This is our 'golden generation' of players. Luke Fitzgerald, Jonathan Sexton and others, in time may fill those big shoes. But the time to perform is now. And if against Italy we find our feet, who knows? But that's part of the fun.


Emmett Quanne
January 2008

buck65

I think we will struggle to 3 wins out of five.

Funkstard

Eddie has pretty much stated that he sees no reason to change the team from the WC debacle. I expect punching of walls to follow when the XV for the Italy match is read out. His opinion seems to be (quite stubbornly) that changing the team won't make a difference, so there's no point in doing so.

I believe I got selection right during the World Cup because if I'd changed the team around would it have transformed our performance?

I can't believe he can even think about feeding us this absolute load of ****. We all know how diabolical the performances were in France, and for him to sit there and say he believes he got the selection right? On what is he basing this off!?

I think the team has the potential to do well in this years 6N, thinking about the recent form of Munster, flashes of greatness from Leinster etc.

I don't see them doing well when reading how EO'S hasn't changed one iota of his coaching strategy. He seems to think in his own head he's somehow got it all right. Insane.