Paul O' Connell went under the dentist's knife yesterday, his hopes of a recall to the Irish team to play Scotland at the weekend undone by, of all things, a tooth abscess. We may never know what would have happened had he been fit, but it now seems more likely that Mick Galwey will retain his starting place and the captaincy.
O'Connell was prescribed anti-biotics last Friday and played for Young Munster in their defeat to Galwegians on Saturday, but his dental problems flared up again on Sunday night. His facial swelling prompted Dr Mick Griffin to refer O'Connell to a dental surgeon, who ruled him out by Sunday evening without the player even making it to the Irish squad base in Greystones.
This latest disappointment, coming as it does after his early retirement with concussion from a try-scoring debut against Wales which ruled him out of the English game, it is another tough blow for the promising 22-year-old.
The Irish squad was further trimmed down to 22 yesterday when Tyrone Howe and Mike Mullins were re-routed to the A squad, which will be chasing a Triple Crown against their Scottish counterparts in Ravenhill on Friday night.
The A squad was also brought up to its 22-man complement by the addition of Donnacha O'Callaghan. Both starting line-ups will be announced at lunchtime in the Irish base at the Glenview Hotel in Wicklow today following an open session at Dr Hickey Park at 11.30.
The under-21s will benefit with the return from injury of Gavin Duffy after the Connacht star missed the 38-36 and 28-23 defeats to Wales and England. Barry Lynn moves to outhalf at the expense of Ian Humpheys, while UCD outhalf Eoghan Hickey has been added to the list of replacements.
Munster manager Jerry Holland has strongly hinted that reports suggesting that former English scrum-half Nigel Melville, now the director of rugby at Wasps, might be in line to succeed Declan Kidney at the province are premature.
Melville has an option to leave Wasps at the end of the season after six years in charge, and has reputedly been offered the role of coach at Gloucester in succession to Philippe Saint-Andre, who was chaired from the pitch after a win away to Harlequins on Saturday.
In fairness, even Melville concedes he had merely been sounded out by an unnamed Munster official.
"I would rather not talk about it, but I can't tell lies either," Melville told the Irish Examiner yesterday. "I have had discussions with some people in Ireland. I need a job and, yes, one of those job offers came from Gloucester. That was an offer. I had discussions with someone from Munster, but I am not quite sure whether it is a job offer quite yet.
"I have also been offered a position in another country, but I am not prepared to say where," Melville added.
Munster recently advertised the vacancy after Kidney and Niall O'Donovan were promoted to the Irish management team. The province are believed to have had over 20 applications for a position which will become available at the end of May. Not that they are obliged to choose from the 20 or so applications, most of which are from foreign coaches, several based in Ireland.
"We're currently going through the list of applicants and, needless to say, we're talking to an awful lot of people," admitted Holland. "It should remain confidential, but we've no control over what other people might say."
A short-list has yet to be finalised, while Holland was not inclined to set a deadline for installing the new coach, though the end of May would seem a reasonable goal.
There are no obvious home-based coaches to succeed Kidney and O'Donovan. It is thought unlikely that Cork Constitution's Brian Hickey will even temporarily give up his dentistry practice. Nor is Michael Bradley thought to be interested.
Even though Mick Galwey and Killian Keane are likely to be involved in some way, they have yet to cut their teeth in the coaching world. Anyway, which Galwey has strongly hinted he would like to carry on playing next season.
Of those non-Irish nationals with a good working knowledge of the domestic game, arguably Warren Gatland would be a prime candidate, but the IRFU would hardly wear him. A more viable option could be another overseas coach to ply his trade with Connacht, Steph Nel, who has done an impressive job with that province.
Meanwhile, the association of second division clubs have issued a statement following recent meetings in which they have strongly endorsed a retention of the current AIB League formula featuring three divisions of 16 clubs each. The notion of the lower division(s) being split regionally was rejected by the association's secretary, John O'Callaghan of Dolphin, as a recipe for "putting club rugby back in the dark ages".
IRELAND UNDER-21 (v Scotland Under-21, Thomond Park, Friday, 7.30 pm) - S Young (Ballymena); M McPhail (UL Bohemians), G Duffy (Galwegians), C O'Sullivan (UCC), C McPhilips (St Mary's College); B Lynn (St Mary's College), B O'Riordan (UCD); J Lyne (Lansdowne), K Corrigan (UCD), B Young (Ballymena), S Keogh (UCC), M McCullough (Ballymena, capt), D Leamy (UCC), R Wilson (DU), N McMillan (Ballymena). REPLACEMENTS: R Best (Newcastle), S Philips (Saracens), M Carroll (Blackrock College), C Hartigan (Garryowen), F Murphy (UCC), E Hickey (UCD), J Norton (St Mary's).
