Four matches, four tries.
The closeness of this year’s Six Nations could yet see two of the three title contenders finish on the same points and points difference on Saturday evening. If that occurs – and you can check out our permutations piece here – the championship will be decided by most tries scored.
England are a country mile ahead, on 11. Wales have five and Ireland on four.
Looking closely at Ireland’s try-scoring in this championship, two arrived when Italy were down to 14 men, Robbie Henshaw’s score against England came off the back of a Conor Murray dink with advantage being played, and there was a penalty try against Wales.
The closest Ireland came to scoring from open play, against the Welsh, was when Tommy Bowe took a nice step inside, out on the right wing, and was hauled down short of the line by Liam Williams.
That was the best Ireland could muster. The low point arrived on 65 minutes as both Bowe, Simon Zebo and Jared Payne waved and hollered for a pass while Ireland set up camp under the Welsh posts.
In fairness to Ireland, both Johnny Sexton and Eoin Reddan were lying under a pile of bodies. Referee Wayne Barnes, who would later deny Ireland clear penalties at the final scrum, seemed to think it was okay for Alun Wyn Jones to lie atop Reddan on the wrong side of the ruck for 11 seconds.
Still, Wales’ left flank was totally exposed and none of the forwards on the scene decided to look over their shoulder and make the necessary decision to go wide. In the end, Cian Healy dropped a pass, the attack was over and the ecstatic Welsh fans hit the roof.
Ireland assistant coach Simon Easterby believes the cure for white line fever lies within the squad.
He says, ‘ [We are] backing the players to make the right calls at the right time. All the players are comfortable to catch and pass and make good decisions; that’s the bottom line.
‘The players will always be backed to make decisions and more often than not they are the ones. They are more than capable of producing the right things at the right time and sometimes under a bit of pressure, when the opposition are making it awkward to do certain things, you are going to come up with a few errors.
‘It’s not for lack of quality of having the players who can see those things. You have to make sure that the make the right decisions at the right time and we’ll back them as coaches to do so.’
Easterby admits Ireland failed many of the tests Wales put up to them, in Cardiff, but believes improvements will be evident against Scotland.
He says, ‘We’ve got to make sure we get those things right this weekend in Murrayfield. It will be no different if we give the Scots the type of momentum [a 12-0 lead after 13 minutes] that we gave Wales, playing at home, we’ll make it a long and difficult afternoon for ourselves.’
‘We know we have certain elements we need to improve on,’ he added, ‘particularly lineout time and our discipline and if we get those elements right, we back the players to make good decisions.’
