It's not often after a Six Nations match as physical as last weekend's in Cardiff that Ireland have no injury concerns. With Jamie Heaslip rushed back and other players returning from various long term injury Irish manager Mick Kearney had the luxury of announcing a clean bill of health for the Irish squad as they face into their final game of the series against Scotland.
“Firstly, just in relation to injuries, there are no injuries to report that will keep anybody out of the game next Saturday,” said Kearney at the team training camp in Kildare.
“It’s a clean bill of health following the Wales game. We came into Carton House yesterday afternoon and the lads rested up for a couple of hours. Then we did some work on Scotland, rested up again this morning, had another meeting this morning and then we’ll train fully this afternoon.
“The squad is as it was last week, as we know the squad was picked for the last two weeks of the championship and everyone will train as normal.”
Far from a down beat mood in the squad, Rob Kearney could pull a few positives out of the weekend's loss to Wales. In a 'despite of ourselves' kind of explanation, Kearney pointed to an Ireland that scrambled back into contention only to be let down by the very things on which they pride themselves.
Criticism Kearney was able to accept but the Irish full back was at pains to point out that a while a Grand Slam is gone, the championship is still alive and the squad are far from pessimistic.
“There’s no pessimism within the squad,” said Kearney. “I think when you lose games and you under perform, you’re going to get criticism and some of those are probably warranted.
“So I’m not surprised at the criticism and the pessimism, we’re fully aware of moods within our own camp. The main thing for us is that there’s no pessimism within the team room.
“Joe was very quick to make sure that we turned the page quite quickly and looked forward to Scotland, a huge Test match in five days’ time. We’re still in with a chance of winning the championship, so we’ll look at a few things in the game and how we can improve.
“We’ll look to do better at some of the things we’re not satisfied with, but at the same time I think it’s very important that we don’t get too caught up and we continue to look forward and get the minds focused on Saturday.”
Kearney was also cautiously optimistic about Scotland, who he said are a better team than the scores they have conceded suggest under new coach Vern Cotter.
He also sees the danger of Ireland looking beyond the match in Edinburgh and at the points difference of the Six Nations Championship table, which could eventually decide the tournament. Ireland's match is the middle of the final three in the tournament.
“I think they’re very strong,” he says of Scotland. “I think the Scottish have been quite unlucky. In all three games this year, they’ve all been within one score. They were leading 13-10 at half time in Twickenham and they were well within the game.
“I think second half they will probably look back at themselves and be disappointed with the performance. Any time you’re 13-10 ahead against England in Twickenham, you’ve put in a good shift.”
Kearney admitted that he will be watching the match involving Wales and Italy, which begins at 12.30 with Ireland’s kick-off in Murrayfield at 2.30pm. He insists, however, that the score line in Rome there won’t affect how Ireland go out and play the match.
“That’s out of our control,” he says of the points difference. “We won’t be focusing in any way on the outcome, or points difference or anything like that. We have to be really professional and treat this just as a one-off game.
“As soon as you start talking points difference, you disrespect the Scottish. That’s something we don’t want to do, and if we do we’ll be punished for it. We certainly won’t be thinking or talking about any points difference. We’ll be going to win the game, and however we do that and by whatever margin - be it one, two, three - that’ll be our focus.”
