Declan Kidney refused to blame his players as Ireland’s indiscipline almost cost them again in their narrow 21-18 RBS 6 Nations win over Scotland at Murrayfield.
The men in green have been on the wrong side of the penalty count in all of their RBS 6 Nations matches so far and despite outscoring Scotland three tries to none on Sunday, they were almost made to pay by the boots of Chris Paterson and Dan Parks.
“There were a couple of penalties that were of our own making and then I’d like to take a good look at some of the others,” said Kidney whose side have struggled to hit the heights since a Grand Slam in his first season in charge two years ago.
“We have worked the process through the referees and the referees’ manager with our games recently and in fairness to the referees over the last two games, they put their hands up and said ‘yeah, we got a few decisions wrong’.
“We have been a bit stop and start by our own standards but barring one or two decisions by everyone involved in the French game we could be in an extremely positive place.
“We are quite a different unit to what we were two years ago because there are quite a number of changes in the squad and in the team, so I think we’re progressing without shouting from the roof tops that we are there yet.
“We have quite a bit to do.”
