Against the head
 By JOHNNY O’CONNOR
Twickenham here we come. After a superb rearguard action we made it to
the Powergen Cup final after a deserved 22-17 victory over our great rivals
Leicester Tigers at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday. Three weeks after
Eoin Reddan and I will be representing Ireland at RFU headquarters we
will be back there on April 9 for another Twickenham final in Wasps colours.
It promises to quite a day against Llanelli Scarlets in the first ever
Anglo-Welsh Cup final and will be preceded by the Powergen Trophy final
between Harlequins and Bedford. With Simon Easterby leading out the Scarlets
and three other Irish players in the Quins ranks there will be no shortage
of Irish interest on Powergen Cup finals day.
Last Saturday’s encounter was every bit as tough and competitive
as I expected it would be and I am still feeling the effects. Although
the contest was finely balanced at the end of the third quarter after
Leicester scored an early second try through Leon Lloyd I always felt
we had the capability of holding out against everything that the Tigers
tried. Our solid defence was eventually rewarded when Ayoola Erinle raced
through for a superb match-clinching try with less than 10 minutes remaining.
The other semi-final was equally exciting when it appeared Bath had taken
a commanding lead early in the third quarter. But two tries from the Scarlets
gave them a one-point lead and they held out for a place in the final
against last year’s losing finalists.
This weekend all attention returns to international rugby with the penultimate
round of the Six Nations championship. It certainly has been an unpredictable
tournament with Scotland defeating the two most fancied sides. Who would
have predicted such a situation last January before the competition began
but at least we realise what we are up against this Saturday.
Had it not been for the unlucky dismissal of Scott Murray against Wales
then Scotland could have been in same position as Wales last year and
be challenging for the Grand Slam. Frank Hadden’s side are still
very much in contention for the championship and will be extremely tough
to break down.
But there are likely to be few changes from the Ireland side that performed
so well against Wales with coach Eddie O’Sullivan’s only real
difficulty being who to select as the partner for Lions lock Paul O’Connell.
Everyone in the camp is in an upbeat mood ahead of this game and one cannot
stress enough the importance of winning a game that will set up a potential
Triple Crown decider the following weekend in Twickenham.
England will be hoping to go one better than we did at the Stade de France
on Sunday and are certainly capable of winning against the French. Bernard
Laporte’s side were far from impressive against the Italians in
their last game. It promises to be another fascinating weekend of international
rugby and hopefully we can all look forward to extending the St. Patrick’s
Day celebrations to one more day with victories in our two remaining games.
It will be anything but easy but we can do it.
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