This game wasn’t lost in Jamie Heaslip’s offload.
Like any clash, there were 80 minutes to add up and, unfortunately in the extenuating circumstance that was Murrayfield on Saturday, there were too many mistakes to count.
As the ball got moved to the right for Scotland’s first try, full back Rob Kearney didn’t offer much full back protection and arrived onto the scene far too late to get a good glimpse of Stuart Hogg going over.
Kearney was sold with a dummy for the second try after Keith Earls allowed the ball to get away earlier in the move. They both were also left outnumbered for the two passages.
Jesus, the third try in the first half…
All the missed tackles, the failed line breaks, the lack of discipline and the good plays from the Scots amounted to one disastrous Six Nations opener for the Irish. Not just the one passage of play but Schmidt’s number 8 received more attention than most when the game was over.
His involvement in the game was splitting opinion and going from assessments like this:
They should name a breed of Bulls after @jamieheaslip . Fucking baste
— Cahir Mac Neachtain (@CahirDavid) February 4, 2017
To this:
Turning point was Heaslip's miracle offload, if we recycle there Scotland are under all sorts of pressure and it's a much more open game
— Pedigree Mongrel (@PMongrel) February 4, 2017
In the 57th minute, Ireland had the Scots on the back foot and looked to be surging through to take the lead. Jamie Heaslip has the ball, Rob Henshaw is coming off him but the forward doesn’t use the support, he’s caught up and then, at the wrong time, he tries to offload and gifts possession back to the hosts.
It certainly swung momentum and, had Heaslip played it earlier, perhaps Henshaw would’ve taken it the whole way and seven extra points would’ve been guaranteed. Even when he was caught, he didn’t need to offload so hastily – he could’ve recycled and kept the Scots penned in.
But, listen, Ireland scored not long after this anyway – Joe Schmidt wasn’t quick to forget about what happened though.
“When Jamie got the ball from Conor Murray, up the middle, they managed to get into the passing channel,” the Irish head coach said as if to imply that the Scots were deliberately offside.
When you look at it again, you see that Henshaw’s run is interfered with by a man coming back from behind the line and the same guy ends up taking Heaslip down. If the ref was stricter and looking out for such obstructions, he could easily have awarded a penalty to the Irish.
Still, the ball didn’t need to be played as Shane Horgan said afterwards: “Jamie Heaslip passing a ball that he never should have…” was one of his examples in a shit-show of a game.
Further still, this wasn’t the defining moment of said shit-show. It was one of many, many mistakes just. And one which could potentially have been saved with better officiating.
