Brutal defeat reflects rugby's cultural divide

ROME WASN'T built in a day but this may take a good deal longer. The sheer magnitude of what Brian Ashton is trying to achieve for Irish international rugby was brutally reinforced in Whangerei yesterday. This wasn't a mis-match between two teams, more two different rugby cultures between which the gap seems to grow ever wider.

To put it in context, this is not a disaster, per se. Sure, it was a horrendous 10-tries-to-one mauling of squirm-inducing embarrassment at times as yet another foreign crowd could be heard laughing intermittently at another non-contest at Ireland's expense. It also amounted to the most points ever conceded by an Irish team.

But we've been down this road before. And the result is probably no worse than the 62-7 defeat inflicted on a full touring Irish side in 1992 by Auckland, or any of the other record defeats in recent times at senior level.

An Irish development squad are here to do just that, develop. At least now there seems to be a goal a long-term objective that will shape the way Ireland approach the modern game.

And this much was apparent, albeit all too fleetingly, for about 15 minutes in the first-half. In that time, Ireland overturned an ominous 14-point deficit to lead for a brief time. David Humphreys landed three penalties and converted a try by Gary Halpin when he burrowed over close-in following a line-out take by Gabriel Fulcher (whose resilience stood out amongst the carnage).

During this spell, the Irish played the game to hand, their close passing, support play and rocking surviving the wet conditions and Northland's array of big hitters. You could see what they were trying to do. Game on? Uh-huh. Game over. For, alas, that was as good as it got.

At set-piece, again, the Irish more than survived but, yet again, turnovers in contact, some powder-puff tackling, basic errors and wrong options were ruthlessly punished.

In 22 minutes split evenly either side of half-time, Northland turned their 14-16 deficit into a 52-16 lead with a penalty and five tries, all converted by their polished New Zealand Colt out-half David Holwell.

Local cult hero, the beefy Maori wing Norman Berryman was Lomuesque as he intimidated would-be tacklers to run in four tries. With almost half an hour to go it was time to hide under the seat and hope it would all end quickly.

Ultimately it could have been a lot worse, the Irish stemming the flow as Northland made a number of tactical substitutes before dipping their bread in the final dozen minutes for three more tries.

David Wallace had a good all-round game and if three, four or more senior international pretenders come through this tour, then it will have been worthwhile.

Eye-opener though this will have been, it could get worse, for the elite of New Zealand's under-22 talent, in the form of their Academy XV, awaits in Auckland on Monday.

With Bay of Plenty, not far behind Northland in the division two provincial pecking order, and a near full-strength Western Samoa to end things off, it's shaping up into a long tour. More pertinently, it's shaping up into a long three year run-in to the 1999 World Cup.

"The way New Zealand teams play rugby now didn't just happen overnight. It took five years. It didn't happen in one or two games, commented a sympathetic Wayne Pivac, Northland's coach.

Nonetheless, Pivac admitted that we thought the opposition might have been a little bit stronger. Obviously we were happy to get Ireland first game up and as the game wore on, we suspected they might get a little tired, and it seemed to turn out that way. They certainly didn't really have much left 10 minutes before half-time."

Pivac detected that the Super 12 had influenced the way Ireland were to attempting to play.

"You could see the pattern early on. They were trying to play the game wide and at pace, but in the end, that worked to their detriment because they didn't have the fitness levels to keep that play up.

"They (Ireland) say that's the starting point toward the next World Cup, but unless you have the fitness levels and the skills to go with it, you can't play that sort of rugby.

"Half the (missed) tackles were when they got tired. That was evident. That was a matter of fitness and compared to our guys, they were found wanting. Just looking at some of their tight forwards, they seemed to slow down sort of half an hour into game. They just ran out of steam. It wasn't size, if you don't have the fitness levels, it's going to affect every part of your game.

A long road then. "Yes, but if you're going to do it, now's the time to start."

Ashton didn't dispute Pivac's comments, but added: "That (fitness) doesn't stop us playing the game because if we do, then we accept that we're never going to get there. The players have got to learn from this. It would have been very easy for us to say `right, forget about trying to keep the ball in hand and trying to use the ball, we'll kick it'. You see what happens when you kick to these guys, you never get the ball again. We've seen that in the Super 12."

Nevertheless, it had been a chastening enough night. Reflecting on the three turnovers that led to the concession of 21 points nearing half-time prompted Ashton to comment: "The amount of ball we lost on contact was quite remarkable."

This was compounded by missed tackles, and perhaps the most embarrassing try was when Niall Woods attempted to ignite the flagging Irish, counter-attacked untypically up a blind alley and kicked crossfield to Berryman. He was waved through by David Coleman before he brushed past Woods to score from 70 metres out.

"Both things are connected" said Ashton of the turnovers in contact and the missed tackling. In all the areas of collision and where you need explosive power, they were far superior to us.

Furthermore, too often Irish runners headed away from the support in not-so-splendid isolation, whereas Northland's runners invariably made sure they had someone to off-load to, or ruck over them. "That's a skill our players are going to have to develop and learn," said Ashton.

"In the long run, it could be a cheap lesson," maintained Pat Whelan. Though, it could take a long time to learn.