ROG had a bad game by his own very high standards.
O’Callaghen played the ball on the ground a number of times (as he often does) and twice behaved badly when Wales conceded a penalty, once costing us three points. He’s a great player; he’s smart, athletic and reads the game very well. He just needs to keep the head a bit better.
I'd agree with the summation of ROG not having his best day, hasn't been having his best season TBH, but its a mark of the man that he was able to take the pretty brutal hammering he got in the first half (and by God was he targeted) and still produce the game-breaking goods. He also became the all time leading 6 Nations points scorer in this campaign. Its his own massively high standards that make us think he looks average in a game such as saturday's.
I thought, and I have yet to find someone who agrees with me, that it was very important for Donncha to be as 'physical' as he was. While handling the ball on the ground is amateurish, it does happen, especially in such a big game. I was actually urging him on when he went for Jones after his cynical (and it
was cynical) trip on ROG in the first few minutes. This game was always going to be a physical contest between two aggressive packs. Welsh captain and pack leader nastily takes our playmaker and obvious defensive weak link out of it, colossal lock forward grabs him by the collar and lets him know in no uncertain terms that if its a fight they want to make of this, a fight you'll get and we will win it. Try to bully us and we'll more than stand up to you. A very important statement at an early stage.
Fair enough, they beat us in the scrum but we owned their line-out. Paulie - WOW!!
I think (I'll declare my loyalty to my beloved Munster) this is all down to Kidney. ROG said in his premature auto-biog that if he would gladly hang up his Irish jersey if he could keep winning with Munster and at the time I didn't disagree with him. Enter Kidney. A team that was so painfully obviously made up of two distinct camps, the Munster forwards and the Leinster backs, became the unit that we all wanted to see and the dividends have been reaped. You saw it in the french game, the forwards did the donkey work, the flair of the Leinster backs scored the tries and the best part was that they all celebrated together. Remember the joy on ROG's face as he congratulated O' Driscoll and D'arcy? You wouldn't have seen that before.
I was at the Argentina game last November and swore blind I'd never pay money to watch such s**t again. The only time the D4s cheered was when ROG made mistakes. It was a horrible experience. I was at the Munster/All-blacks game and the difference in support was phenonemal. I was out in Cork after the game saturday and there were a few Leinster boys in the hotel and it seems finally that they were supporting Ireland, not just the Leinster contingent, as much as I have warmed to Ireland and not just the Munster lads. Hopefully we can keep this going.
Long post, I know, but saturday and the whole campaign has been so good and so stirring.A Nation Once Again!!