SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP IRISH SQUAD TRAINING: THE WINTRY conditions in Cork yesterday forced the Ireland squad indoors at UCC's impressive Mardyke Arena.

Everyone was reported to be in decent shape though manager Paul McNaughton did allude to “tired and sore” bodies following Saturday’s war of attrition against England and, while certain players are “off the field” and rested this week, testament to the excellent conditioning of the players is that there are no serious injury scares to report.

Replacement and fringe players have been released for the weekend’s Magners League and Guinness Premiership action, with McNaughton acknowledging that there are “some very close calls in several positions”.

Big performances, he says, could certainly colour the management’s thinking ahead of Tuesday’s team announcement for the Six Nations clash against Scotland.

However, as a distraction yesterday, Irish players have followed their Welsh counterparts last week when they were taken for fittings and measurements by a company hired by the Lions. Apparently everyone is still in the mix for the summer tour, though if soundings from management are an indicator of the players’ mindsets, the high veldt in South Africa is a distant journey for now, a point emphasised by McNaughton.

Repeating his oft-quoted mantra of one-game-at-a-time, he accepts there may be external pressures and high expectation levels of a grand slam among the public but the players are simply focused on the Scotland match.

Still, it is clear that this Ireland team has matured greatly after years of missing out on grand slams and championships, and appear an altogether more streetwise outfit, not dissimilar from the England grand slam team of 2003.

“I’ve only been involved this year, but in a more short-term aspect there’s a lot more sense of purpose and a maturity and confidence in the team than there was at the start of the year and than there was in November. That’s as far as I can go back,” said McNaughton.

“There is a lot of pressure generated by the public, the media, and by everybody else and that goes with the territory. These guys have been around a long time. Even though they may not have won a grand slam or a championship before, they’ve won Triple Crowns and there has been pressure going into those games. So there’s an experienced bunch there.”

Much of the media talk since the weekend win over England has been taken up by the performances of two of the team’s leaders, Ronan O’Gara and Brian O’Driscoll. However, both their experiences were at different ends of the spectrum.

McNaughton put O’Gara’s display down to simply a bad day at office, but the Munster outhalf had obviously taken his off-colour kicking display to heart, apologising to his peers after the match.

“Ronan’s still fit and strong. He had a bad day, but he was first to stand up in the dressingroom afterwards to apologise to the guys. The apology wasn’t accepted really because they know what could happen and this can happen. It’s business as usual with Ronan. I don’t think anybody in the management or the players have any doubt that when we really need Ronan he’ll be there.”

As for O’Driscoll, McNaughton hasn’t been surprised by the captain’s rejuvenated form. “I think what we saw from Brian to date was clips of things that we’ve seen over the last five or six years. He’s had to adapt as he’s got older. We weren’t surprised, that’s ultimately why it was decided not to change the captaincy because of his leadership, his ability defensively and his ability to change a game.

“Certainly over the last year he hasn’t shown the type of form that he has shown in the last three or four games. We’ve all played football and you know if you’re not on form suddenly you get it back, and there’s often no logical reasons why you actually got it back. Whether it’s happy about getting the captaincy or people writing him off in newspapers or whatever, certainly his form since the championship started has been his best form in the last year and this season in particular – I think we’re all pleased about that.”

The Ireland manager was flanked by Gert Smal and Les Kiss at yesterday’s press conference. Asked if he had changed the way Ireland scrummage, Smal said: “No, just put more emphasis on certain things. They’re used to scrummaging in a certain way, you try to change things slowly but surely. You don’t have much time with a national team, you can only change things a little bit at a time, maybe look at changing certain systems.”