Irish coach Declan Kidney blamed his sides inability to finish off their moves as the main reason behind their shock 12-8 Six Nations defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield.
Following Ireland’s first defeat in the Six Nations at Murrayfield since 2001, Kidney told RTÉ Sport: “It’s about taking your opportunities isn’t it. There were several times – in the first half especially – that we didn’t take our opportunities.”
” Our possession was wasteful. We made the line breaks but we didn’t manage to finish them off unfortunately. We put ourselves in good positions several times, but unfortunately turned over the ball quite easily to them.”
Kidney also defended his decision to select 21-year-old Ulster outhalf Paddy Jackson:
“ I think if you look at his input to the line breaks, he had a major part to do with that, and that’s why we picked him because we knew he could bring that to our game.“Unfortunately there are two roles to an outhalf: there’s the playing of the game, and there’s the place-kicking. Unfortuntely there’s a few place kicks that went awry. I think it was more the other opportunites that cost us it at the end of the day.”
When asked about whether it was time to consider his future, he said:
“I’ve always said my role is all about getting ready for the next match. That’s what it always has been and that’s what it always will be.”
