Indiscipline has proved costly to Martin Johnson’s side and it may be time for him to leave a few boots at home

“To me a disciplined team is one that can continuously do the right thing as a group under extreme conditions. An obvious example, of which there are many, would be holding the correct line in defence

DAVID, A friend, contacted me this week to apologise regarding his reaction to Ireland’s “boring” victory last weekend. He was truly repentant, having felt that Ireland had somehow won a hollow, limited fixture that was the antithesis of what a spectator spending €90 should expect.

Yes it’s great to win was his attitude but surely a little entertainment wouldn’t be too much to ask.

Once again I disagreed.

As the clock drifted into the red last week a very frustrated but very physically committed Mike Tindall speared himself into an unprotected Denis Leamy which flattened him. Eighty two minutes of an enthralling battle had played itself out and Tindall’s late hit drew a reaction from all around that unfortunately dampened the full-time celebrations.

The preceding two minutes told the story of the match.

Delon Armitage had just scored a try and the game was definitely on. Memories of Ireland versus France two years ago came flooding back.

The reason I enjoyed the match so much was in no small part to the last 90 seconds of play where the sheer physicality and commitment of the remaining 30 players shone through. Remember all of them are well paid professionals, but I can’t imagine the win bonus was their driving force.

To a man each fought out the clock as if their very lives were on the line. Even at that last stage Tindall was giving his all, but like his colleagues in a indisciplined way.

I notice that the official statistics separated Ireland from England by one point and in all facets of play there was almost nothing between the teams.

Puzzlingly the error count had Ireland racing ahead with Stephen Ferris the leader on two followed by Ronan O’Gara, Luke Fitzgerald, Tomás O’Leary and finally Armitage.

But neither Phil Vickery nor Danny Care made it into the “most errors” count! Both of whom spent 10 minutes in the bin.

Rugby, a much maligned activity from some corners, has something that the GAA will never have.

It allows total physical confrontation where Brian O’Driscoll at 5ft 9in and 15 stone can, with every sinew available to him, dump Nick Kennedy at 6ft 8in and 18½ stone on his arse. Of course there is a very fine line between legal and illegal or more accurately, or as the English are discovering, discipline.

Discipline is sometimes confused by an ability to resist the temptation of striking out at a player in self defence or more accurately put, indiscipline is when a player losses control of his senses and punches an opponent.

Or as Martin Johnson’s England can testify on 18 separate occasions over-extending the risk versus reward ratio. In Croke Park decisions are made in a nanosecond where the outcome can lose grand slams.

To me a disciplined team is one that can continuously do the right thing as a group under extreme conditions. An obvious example, of which there are many, would be holding the correct line in defence.

However, there are the more subtle examples that were key to Ireland’s one-point win. John Hayes’ contribution in the lineout is clearly built on discipline, where hundreds of times he’s done the right thing at the right time to get Paul O’Connell and co into the exact spot where the ball was to arrive.

O’Driscoll’s try against France resulted from such discipline from Hayes.

England have lost two Tests (Ireland and Wales) by a combined total of nine points. But in both fixtures they have conceded 32 penalties/free-kicks to 19.

So with a little discipline they would have beaten both Wales and Ireland, and would now be the only unbeaten side heading for a grand slam. So Ireland did extremely well to beat them.

With the advent of television cameras, yellow cards and professional contracts, the game has changed drastically.

In times not so long gone, the hero was the player who stood up to the bully and meted out the punishment overtly more often than covertly.

Later in the dressingroom his team-mates would look up to him as the hero. But now the margins are so tight that the modern professional player would happily jettison the loose cannon for victory. Therefore England must drop their entire team.

However, all’s not lost for Johnson. There are very clever ways to move continual transgressors out of the side. Parteen GAA parish club had an ingenious method of catering for serial offenders.

Our Clare minor county victory was one such occasion. We were the only east Clare football team to contest the county championship as football was (and still is) very much a west Clare game. But we got on a run of victories that brought us to the final.

The only fly in the ointment was a certain corner back, David from above, that through over exuberance continually conceded fouls. He was by far our greatest transgressor. This was becoming very costly and was sure to scupper our trophy ambitions.

So our coach, David’s father, decided the risk was so grave that drastic action was required. As we togged out David discovered that he had neglected to pack his boots.

And as the final was in west Clare, 50 miles from Parteen there was certainly no time to pop home.

With all the commotion from the dressingroom the opposition coach inquired to the problem. Happily both he and David were of similar size so he offered the loan of his boots.

This was not good and our coach was forced to come clean and admit he had secretly taken David’s boots out of his gear bag before departing Parteen!

David’s reaction was predictable . . . “You couldn’t even drop your own son!

“You had to take the boots out of his bag.”

I can just imagine Johnson sneaking into Vickerys room late at night and stealing his boots!