Ireland v Scotland reaction:Paul O'Connell admitted Ireland had endured an anti-climatic ending to their Six Nations in the wake of today's disappointing defeat at the hands of Scotland.
The defending champions had hoped to give Croke Park a triumphant send-off but were toppled by a superb performance, despite scoring tries through Brian O’Driscoll, who will undergo a scan after twisting his knee, and Tommy Bowe.
“It’s been a disappointing championship. Two defeats is more than we wanted at the start,” said the Munster captain. “We’re an excellent side and we want to win things. Unfortunately now we’re coming away empty handed so we’re disappointed with the way it’s gone.”
Ireland were undermined by losing seven out of 17 lineouts, a rare misfire in what is traditionally one of their strongest areas of the game.
“The lineouts were disappointing. They defended them very well and we made a few mistakes ourselves. We struggled in that area today unfortunately,” said O’Connell.
Declan Kidney accepted Ireland had under-performed but praised Scotland, who avoided the wooden spoon with their first win of the tournament.
“We have to give Scotland credit for playing a good game and keeping the scoreboard ticking over,” he said. “We didn’t have our greatest day. We made errors and we’ve said all along that unless you’re right on top of your game any team in this competition can beat you.
“We congratulate Scotland and the way they played wasn’t a complete shock to us, we saw it coming. But we will take a hard look at ourselves. We tried things in the first half
and made a few errors. It’s extremely disappointing.
“Days like this are going to happen. It’s so disappointing — the venue, the result, everything that was at stake. If we look at the Six Nations we feel there’s more in us. A lot of the things that went wrong are within our control to rectify.”