Planet Rugby: While the Ireland Under-19 team were hampered this week because of the three schools cup finals in Munster, Leinster and Ulster, as of now only one player is not available for the Under-19 World Cup in Dubai next month.
Blackrock's Luke Fitzgerald has withdrawn from the tournament because of its close proximity to the Leaving Certificate examination. The talented young centre and fullback, however, has not been part of the Irish team's preparations, largely down to an injury to his collar-bone sustained while playing against St Michael's earlier in the season.
"It has been decided that he will concentrate on his studies. If available he would come into our plans," said Ireland Under-19 manager Keith Patton.
Yes, we suspect he would have.
Tough calls to be made
The Geraghty brothers, Shane and Kieron, are involved in one example of what we fondly describe as a "tug of love" situation. Despite representing Ireland at under-16, Shane has played for England at every other age grade below senior representation and returned from the Under-21 World Cup in Argentina last summer where he was one of the stars of the tournament. Brother Kieron played on the wing for Ireland under-21s last year.
Declan Danaher was London Irish's Young Player of the Season in 2000-01 and 2001-02. He has represented Ireland at under-19 level and England at under-21 level and England A. The flanker also played for the Barbarians last year and is only 25-years-old.
Nick Kennedy, believe it or not, is also Ireland qualified. Nick joined the London Irish in 2001 at the age of 20 following considerable success as a basketball player at Portsmouth University. Last season himself and Bob Casey consistently ranked as the most effective lineout stealing partnership in the Premiership. Which way would Nick turn if the representative chance presented itself? The RFU are doing a fine job, no doubt, just about hoovering up everything at the moment it seems.
Testing times for UCD
Who says Six Nations weekends are down time for everyone else involved in club rugby? One feature of the weekend's action was the number of UCD RFC Academy players that gained both interprovincial and international honours.
UCD had no less than nine players travelling to England on Ireland duty with two players on the Ireland A squad (Robert Kearney and Ronan McCormack), two on the under-21 squad (Fergus McFadden and SeáO'Brien) and five on the under-19 squad (Ian Keatley, David Gilchrist, Conor McInerney, Kevin Sheahan and Richard Sweeney).
At provincial level, six of UCD's contracted players were named on the Leinster squad that played Petrarca Padova in Friday night's challenge match in Donnybrook and five players were also named on the Leinster A squad that played Munster A in Roscrea RFC on Thursday night.
Aren't there exams coming up?
Food for thought
So much for teams bringing their own chefs to overseas matches. Prior to the game against France last week, England's Matt Dawson was allegedly affected by a stomach bug with Mike Tindall and Steve Thompson, plus replacements Tom Voyce and Lee Mears. A French restaurant got the blame. C'est la vie.
The All Blacks are still smarting from the 1995 World Cup final, where, it was suggested, forces loyal to the new post-apartheid Springboks conspired to deny them the World Cup by poisoning their grub. Former South African rugby supremo Louis Luyt also made the startling claim that the Springboks were poisoned. He said food poisoning flattened most of the South African squad just before their 27-18 win over Australia in the tournament's opening match.
Australia, too, were hit by a bout of food poisoning in Argentina, when they toured there in 2002. Coach at the time, Eddie Jones, said a dozen players had been unwell after a meal at the team hotel. It would never have happened in Clive Woodward's time. Woodward said, prior to their 2003 World Cup final, the team's rooms had been swept for bugs and revealed they had found bugs in their rooms in the past.
