A version of this article was published in the Irish Examiner on Tuesday Febuary 26th 2013

 “Sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero ‘cause what’s a hero? …but sometimes there’s a man… he’s the man for his time ’n’ place, he fits right in there.”

As Joel and Ethan Coen wrote about their slacker hero in The Big Lebowski, so too was Declan Kidney the man who was seemingly the perfect fit for Ireland after the Eddie O’Sullivan era. Kidney began his time as Ireland coach with a 55-0 canter against Canada in front of his appreciative Thomond Park faithful and less than six months later he had delivered a Grand Slam. He was a national hero.

That 2009 Six Nations was by some distance the high point of Kidney’s Ireland reign, a short period of success never since approached with isolated highlights such as the 2011 dismantling of an England team going for a Grand Slam or the magnificent World Cup win against Australia later that same year two honourable exceptions.

In 2009 and 2010 Kidney’s Ireland teams won 16 of 24 games (a 67% winning rate) with an average points difference per match of +6.2. Since then Ireland have won just 11 of 27 tests played (41%) and have an average points difference of +0.9 per match.

Having a losing record with a positive points differential can be reflective of suffering lots of narrow losses; recent defeats against Scotland, England and South Africa are three such examples. Those three games were all notable for having a relatively poor second half performance, echoes of which were also seen in recent wins over Wales and Argentina. This is reflected in the statistics that show that in those 27 test matches since January 2011 Ireland have been outscored in the second half. Suffering lots of narrow losses can perhaps be viewed as being unlucky, but over more than two years that could point to something else being amiss either on or off the field.

Just as Declan Kidney will be forever linked with the 2009 Grand Slam triumph, Eddie O’Sullivan’s legacy is tied to Ireland’s disastrous 2007 World Cup in France. That aside, however, O’Sullivan’s overall record as Ireland coach was actually far superior to Kidney’s and it’s not especially close.

O’Sullivan took charge of Ireland in 78 tests, winning 50 (64%) with an average points difference of +7.3. In his first 39 games the record was better still, winning 72% of those games while scoring almost eleven points a match more than the opposition. The second half of his time as boss was less successful; in winning 22 of those 39 games he won far less often (56%), reflected in an average points difference of just +3.7 per game.

Kidney’s Ireland teams have won at just a 53% rate with an average points difference of +3.4 per game. That is to say, in the less-successful second half of Eddie O’Sullivan’s Ireland coaching career he still achieved a better winning percentage and points difference than Kidney has managed in his four years in the job. The biggest contributor to that difference is in points scored with O’Sullivan’s teams consistently scoring 25% more points than Kidney’s.

Declan Kidney gave Irish rugby a Grand Slam and a couple of wonderful days since. The era of having Ireland teams including a Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara or Brian O’Driscoll is coming to an end. As the boss of an Ireland team in decline, it will be interesting to see whether Declan Kidney soon joins them.