BOD coy on Grand Slam talk

O'Driscoll dives over for Ireland's try in the 14-13 win over England

Related links

Teams

• England
• Ireland

Also see

• Sky Sports experts
• Rugby on Sky
• Live scores

Captain Brian O'Driscoll refused to entertain talk of a Grand Slam despite leading Ireland to a hard-fought 14-13 triumph over England at Croke Park.

It means Declan Kidney's men preserved their 100 percent record in this year's RBS Six Nations Championship and now top the table after France's victory over Wales last night.

Victories in their remaining matches against Scotland and Wales would see the Irish clinch their first Grand Slam in 61 years, but O'Driscoll was quick to deflect attention away from that prospect.

The 30-year-old insisted he and his team-mates were focused solely on their next match against Scotland and would not be looking beyond that fixture at Murrayfield.

"Nothing has changed for us. We'll give Scotland exactly the same respect we gave France, Italy and England," he stated.

"We're talking about Scotland and them alone. Murrayfield is a tough place to go - I know that from experience.

"Any side cam beat any other in this tournament. That's what makes it so hard to win.

"We'll enjoy this victory tonight and then start focusing all of our attention on Murrayfield."

O'Driscoll conceded Ireland had been far from convincing in their triumph over Martin Johnson's England who set up a nervy climax with a last-gasp try from Delon Armitage.

However, he was pleased his side showed the character to come through a bruising contest.

"The ending was a little nerve-wracking," he continued. "We made it harder for ourselves than we needed to conceding when we did near the end.

"But we played it out and won. We didn't stress ourselves, just did what we needed to.

"There were a few opportunities out there. That was one of the more physical matches played in a long, long time.

"England have been in three World Cup finals and are a huge team to beat. We enjoy winning against them because we know how hard it is.

"It wasn't the perfect performance but we're happy to have beaten England, albeit by one point."

O'Driscoll was on the end of two dubious tackles by England with Riki Flutely and then Armitage taking out the Irish skipper with borderline hits.

Only that of Armitage was given as a penalty, but the Irish skipper remained philosophical in spite of his treatment.

"I'm sore now and will know in the morning that I've been in a hard Test match," he added.

"You expect that against the better teams in the world. The challenges hurt.

"I'm not here to be judging what sort of tackles they were. I won't hold grudges against the players."

Johnson fury

England boss Martin Johnson could not conceal his anger as indiscipline once again cost his side dear.

Johnson saw two more men (Phil Vickery and Danny Care) sin-binned during the defeat at Croke Park as his charges gave away no fewer than 18 penalties.

Care's offence, a needless barge on Marcus Horan, allowed Ronan O'Gara to kick what proved the decisive penalty and left Johnson tearing his hair out.

"I thought we handled them defensively pretty well in the first half but the penalties weren't great by half-time and it got worse," he fumed.

"I said to the players after the game, you cost yourselves the game. Face facts, it was a big effort, they did some things very well at times but if you give away 18 penalties you are going to lose.

"The one that really changed the game was Danny's. It was 11-6, it made it 14-6 and we had no scrum-half for 10 minutes.

"The focus this week has been not giving penalties away and trusting our defence and being accurate in that area - and they have done it again.

"I am angry for them, not me. We have gone toe to toe with one of the better teams in Europe, a team that could win this championship.

"We were under pressure at times and at times we had them under pressure - but if you give 18 penalties away you are not going to win."

"These are in big passionate one-off games here. We were playing in a volatile, passionate place and despite the penalties we kept ourselves in game very well and we handled what they had to throw at us attacking wide.

"That makes it all the more frustrating. We didn't need to give penalties away because we weren't getting broken in defence.

"Two weeks ago against Wales I thought we had a chance to win. This week we certainly did.

"They have to understand they have cost themselves a Test match. We have conceded one try way from home again. The defence is good, we have got to trust it."