He’ll be gracing your TV screens with the six nations coverage, but we got the chance to talk to him about England, Ireland and THAT incident in 2003.
By Adrian Collins
JOE: You’re coming back to Ireland to do some RTE coverage, are you excited about the trip?
Ben Kay: Yeah of course, I really enjoyed my time over there during the World Cup, it’ll be great to see a couple of familiar faces. It’s good to get back for an England Ireland game too, so I’m really looking forward to it.
JOE: Looking at the teams that have been named, do you see any big shocks?
BK: I probably would have picked Manu Tuilagi, but as Stuart Lancaster said he’s not match fit, and I wonder whether in the back of his mind he’s had a look at the performance of Brian O’Driscoll last week and how he took advantage of the Welsh defence.
While Tuilagi is a big hitter, his defensive organisation isn’t as good as Brad Barritt’s, so he may be used as an impact subsititute when people are tired and the Irish line might not be as solid because of fatigue.
JOE: Any other stand out selections?
BK: It would have been a surprise if Billy Twelvetrees didn’t play after last week, and I think that he’s like a Will Greenwood. He understands the role of the 10, he becomes the eyes and ears and takes a lot of pressure off him, which you could see in Owen Farrell’s performance last week since he was pretty assured. A lot of that was down to having Twelvetress beside him.
JOE: You mentioned O’Driscoll, has he cemented a Lions shirt with his performance last week?
BK: He’s certainly cemented his place on the trip anyway. I was at a do with Warren Gatland last night and while we couldn’t get it out of him, O’Driscoll might have gone up the order in his thinking for the captaincy.
Conor O’Shea was also there last night, and he was talking about the first time Gatland brought O’Driscoll in to train with the senior team and asked the senior players “when do you think he’ll be ready”. They all said to put him in the team now.
If he can back last week up with a similar performance he will undermine anyone who was questioning him.
JOE: You’ve played here yourself, will the crowd have an impact?
BK: Yeah definitely. It will be difficult if Ireland start to get that foothold into the game. Once that scoreboard starts to tick over it’s very difficult to get it back because of the crowd.
JOE: Any favourite memory from playing here?
BK: The Grand Slam win in 2003 was great although there was of course that famous incident. Clive Woodward told us it was a fantastic crowd and a welcoming nation, but they will try to mess you about a bit, which they did and let us stand outside for a while before coming out to get us to soak up the atmosphere.
Since there was no Irish team there, we didn’t know which side to stand on but by the time they came over a few of us were sending messages down to tell Martin Johnson it’ll look soft if we move now.
It wasn’t deliberate, but even speaking to the most ardent Irish fans who still haven’t forgiven Johnson for what we did that day, they all say it really set the tone for the game. Despite the scoreline it was a much closer game that day too, it took some winning.
JOE: Where do you think this game will be won and lost?
BK: There’s a key battle area which will be the tackle. Ireland went back to the choke tackle, and even if they didn’t manage to stand up the Welsh boys, by the time the ball got to the floor it was so slow that they Irish defensive line had time to settle.
England on the other hand were deliberately trying to stand up in the tackle anyway and offload, so they’ll enter contact differently.
If Ireland are trying to stand them up and they’re trying to stand up anyway, then the key area will be whether Ireland can get their hands on the ball and slow it down. If England can keep the ball away from them, they’ll get opportunities.
JOE: So who do you think started stronger of the two teams?
BK: I don’t think you can ever say because every game is an individual game, but the Irish performance was very impressive, the way they started and going so far ahead away to Wales.
Having said that, I don’t think England could have done much more with what was in front of them. They found a lot of space on the field, which was impressive.
JOE: So we’re going to push you for your prediction, who’s winning this one?
BK: It’s a tough one because I think England’s discipline is going to be really important, they had problems there two years ago with discipline and it cost them.
I’m going to go 22-18, but I don’t know which way. I’ll say Ireland since you’re based in Ireland (although I’d say England if this was an English site)!
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