The Irish management played their last hand of a protracted 10and-a-half month season yesterday when shuffling the deck in making 10 changes from the side which beat the USA 83-3 for this Saturday's tour finale against Canada. After the latest flurry of five new caps last Saturday, there are none in this more experienced looking line-up. The nearest thing to one is full back Dominic Crotty, recalled after a three-year gap since winning the last of his four caps on the left wing, before beginning his postponed honeymoon on Sunday.
Despite falling short in the primary objective of winning all three Tests, undoubtedly the tour has succeeded in broadening the squad's base, with all 29 players now used. It's indicative of a 13-Test season that Crotty becomes the 47th player used by Ireland this season. Six survive from the starting XV which played Argentina last August - Justin Bishop, Kevin Maggs, David Humphreys, Keith Wood, Jeremy Davidson and Andy Ward, recalled for first start since the World Cup.
Only Malcolm O'Kelly (strained knee ligament) was ruled out through injury. "It was a very hard one to call," admitted manager Brian O'Brien. "Initially when we came out we intended giving everyone a game if we could at all and I think we succeeded in that. Last week was excellent. Okay, you could argue about the opposition, but I would say the USA didn't expect to play as poorly as they did or expect us to play as well as we did. It was a close call for a lot of them, but we felt this was the team for the game to finish with.
"We're not taking it lightly. We reckon they'll probably be stronger than the USA, and they felt they did well in South Africa. I was talking to some of them and they reckon that the South African game was just that little bit faster than they'd ever played before, so if we play as fast as South Africa we should win the game. Having said that it's going to be a tough one."
There must have been a temptation to look at Geordan Murphy again but that would have been unfair on Crotty, who has climbed a steep slope to reclaim an Irish jersey.
"Geordan looked extremely well in the last game but Crotty would have been the only one without a game, though that wasn't the reason (he was picked). Crotty was the original choice, and has had a very good season," said O'Brien. "It's great to be back," said Crotty. After being dropped off the international squad you go through the bad parts of being dropped off the As and then I was dropped off Munster. So it has been a long road back."
O'Brien said the tour had gone some way in its stated aim of bolstering the strength in depth of the squad. That said, given this quasi first-strength team, there were some interesting choices made, though O'Brien admitted those at numbers 12 and 10 were essentially 50-50 calls.
"Half-back was difficult. (Guy) Easterby did exceptionally well. Rog (Ronan O'Gara) did exceptionally well, his kicking out of his hand was fantastic last week. He has been carrying a little knock on his ankle so we felt this was Humphreys' game. Henderson could feel he was in the team as he did exceptionally well also, as did Maggs. They were hard decisions."
The final place in the replacements is between Henderson and Murphy. Keith Wood and Simon Easterby will be the only players to have started all three Tests. The squad's training session at Crusaders in the Oakville area was curtailed to no more than 15 minutes due to the heavy downpour which hit Toronto yesterday.
In what will be a welcome relief to both his province and club, Eddie Halvey has decided to turn down a sizeable offer from London Irish and remain with Shannon and Munster. "Everything's going well, I'm playing well and my business is going well. I'm happy and that's helping me play well."
