RONAN KELLEHER remembers the laughs in the Murrayfield dressing room two years ago before Ireland made a mockery of rugby’s conventional wisdom.
And he believes the lesson now is that Ireland know not to panic no matter what goes wrong.
Ireland face Scotland on Sunday in the Six Nations in what is their first return to Edinburgh since winning at Murrayfield on their way to the 2023 Grand Slam.
That 22-7 was one of the highlights of that campaign, as Ireland won despite no recognised hooker for much of the game.
Starter Dan Sheehan went off after 18 minutes to be replaced by Kelleher who picked up a shoulder injury that meant he was unable to throw into line-outs.
And while he did try to play on with flanker Josh van der Flier taking over throwing duties, he was eventually replaced by prop Cian Healy playing his first game at hooker since school.
Yet with Healy holding firm in the scrum for the final 32 minutes and a pack that also lost Iain Henderson and Caelan Doris, Ireland held Scotland scoreless in the second half to win out.
And Kelleher acknowledged that a Murrayfield return now brings back memories – but mostly about how Ireland refused to panic.
He said: “I just remember coming in at halftime, Dan had gone down, Hendy had gone down, my shoulder was at me a bit, but there was no panic.
“I just remember a few people laughing, like ‘this is wild’. But just a next man up mentality.
“‘Church’ (Cian Healy) obviously went in, did unbelievably well in the scrum, Josh did unbelievably well at the lineout throws.
“It was just more of the funny situation, but people were willing to step up and I thought we did well as a squad to get through that.
“It was more just funny looking around, no one panicked, everyone was like right, we have a job to do.
“And it just showed not only the experience but also the quality in the squad that obviously Cian was able to slot in pretty seamlessly into the hooker position and obviously Josh was the same throwing-wise.
“It was a brilliant day and we were obviously delighted and it led to a big Grand Slam win the following week, so it was massive.”
Not panicking was again on evidence last Saturday as Ireland started their quest for a third Six Nations title in a row with a 27-22 win over England.
Trailing at half time despite dominating territory, they made their control count after the break to secure a bonus point win – even though two late England tries made it close.
Kelleher said: “It was physical, but it was good. Obviously it was a pretty slow start.
“They were good, kept the ball for long phases that first 10-15 minutes, and then we were defending for long long periods in that first half.
“But when we got the ball back I think we managed to eventually get over for a score and then we knew coming in at half time that we had defended well.
“They fired shots and we managed to keep them out for a good bit.
It was one of those ones we thought their legs might go towards the end, so just stay on it and keep pounding the rock really.
“It was good in terms of we showed that defensive character.
“We did defend for long periods of time but we managed to keep them out for the most part, obviously the last five minutes or so was disappointing to concede at the end.
“We were just talking how it almost felt like a bit of a loss at the end just because we conceded those two late ones.
“We were happy for the most part with how it went.”
