RUGBY/Six Nations Championship: The Irish management have deferred some difficult decisions, most notably it would seem the impending omission of either Mick Galwey or Gary Longwell, by delaying the announcement of a 22-man squad for Saturday week's championship clash at home to Scotland until next Monday.
The 25 players who attended Wednesday's video analysis of the English game and training in Skerries yesterday have all been named for the time being, pending club run outs in the AIB league on Saturday for Paul O'Connell, whose Young Munster side are away to Galwegians, and Shane Horgan, whose Lansdowne outfit entertain Buccaneers.
O'Connell and Horgan, along with Tyrone Howe, John Kelly and Mike Mullins, have been added to the squad for the Scotland game, which has been pruned of the injured Geordan Murphy and Rob Henderson.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to presume that O'Connell, having been sidelined since his debut against Wales for a mandatory three weeks with concussion, is well placed to play himself into the final 22 at least, in which case the incumbent captain, Galwey, and Longwell would look more vulnerable than Malcolm O'Kelly, on the proviso that the 22-year-old lock produces a strong showing in Crowley Park tomorrow.
Likewise Horgan, whose rib problems have seemingly cleared up, bearing in mind Murphy's injury has left the Leinster centre's Irish right wing slot up for grabs. The options here are complicated by Tyrone Howe having aggravated a shoulder injury yesterday, which will rule him out of Dungannon's trip to St Mary's. Presuming one or other of them does fill the number 14 jersey, that leaves the management with a straight choice between Mullins and Kelly for what was Henderson's place on the bench, with Mullins' greater experience making him the favourite.
"There's no point in hurrying ourselves into making any decisions before we have to, and until we see how the weekend pans out," explained manager Brian O'Brien.
Nonetheless, this may make for some anxious waiting by phone lines on Sunday evening before three of the squad are re-routed on Monday to the Triple Crown-seeking A squad, which is notable for the welcome recall of Jeremy Staunton.
Much of Wednesday had been spent purging themselves of Twickenham, and O'Brien revealed that the over-riding mood amongst the players was one of anger more than anything else.
"They were angry with themselves over their level of performance. We're way better than that and the guys are annoyed about that. We wanted to get into the game early but we started poorly. We were shaky for 20 minutes and then we made a few mistakes defensively," said O'Brien.
"In previous times we might have covered thing up by scrambling or corner flagging but we're trying to bring our game up another level. Clearly, we haven't arrived at it yet but we've got to stick with it."
This step backwards to hopefully take two forward, was undermined by what O'Brien called a "fragmentation of the defensive line. We didn't keep it intact because we didn't trust each other enough. We've got to be more confident in the guy outside, that he'll hold his line."
Meanwhile, London Irish are to become a publicly quoted company after deciding to raise £2 million through a share issue with the help of former Irish international and investment banker Bendan Mullin. Already £1 million has been pledged by some unnamed Irish investors.
London Irish Holdings Limited, the owner of London Irish Rugby Football Club, will raise £2 million by way of a Placing and Open Offer. The Placing at £1 million will be to Powerscourt Nominees, a wholly owned subsidiary of Powerscourt Capital Partners ("Powerscourt") of whom Mullin is managing director, on behalf of a small number of Irish investors.
In total Powerscourt are underwriting £1.5 million of the £2 million to be raised, after which Mullin will be a non-executive director on the London Irish board.
IRELAND SQUAD
FORWARDS: Shane Byrne (Leinster), Peter Clohessy (Munster), Simon Easterby (Llanelli), Anthony Foley (Munster), Mick Galwey (Munster), John Hayes (Munster), Gary Longwell (Ulster), Eric Miller (Leinster), Paul O'Connell (Munster), Malcolm O'Kelly (Leinster), Frank Sheahan (Munster), David Wallace (Munster), Paul Wallace (Leinster).
BACKS: Girvan Dempsey (Leinster), Guy Easterby (Llanelli), Denis Hickie (Leinster), Shane Horgan (Leinster), Tyrone Howe (Ulster), David Humphreys (Ulster), John Kelly (Munster), Kevin Maggs (Bath), Mike Mullins (Munster), Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster), Ronan O'Gara (Munster), Peter Stringer (Munster).
Not considered due to injury: Geordan Murphy (Leicester), Rob Henderson (Munster), Keith Wood (Harlequins).
IRELAND A SQUAD
FORWARDS: Simon Best (Ulster), Bob Casey (Leinster), Reggie Corrigan (Leinster), Victor Costello (Leinster), Leo Cullen (Leinster), Keith Gleeson (Leinster), Gavin Hickie (Leinster), Marcus Horan (Munster), A.N. Other, Paul Shields (Ulster), A.N. Other; Alan Quinlan (Munster), Andy Ward (Ulster).
BACKS: Paul Burke (Harlequins), Sheldon Coulter (Ulster), Gordon Darcy (Leinster), Neil Doak (Ulster), Ben Willis (Leinster), Jason Holland (Munster), A.N. Other, A.N. Other, Jeremy Staunton (Munster), Paddy Wallace (Ulster).
A.N. Other vacancies will be filled on Monday.
Not considered due to injury: Jeremy Davidson (Ulster).
