RUGBY:DECLAN KIDNEY maintained that the two selections to play France on Saturday and Connacht this evening do not mark out a specific pecking order, but as Mandy Rice-Davies ventured: he would say that, wouldn't he? In the heel of the hunt, one or two players appear to have had their worst fears confirmed.
Aside from the anticipated returns of Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy and David Wallace, Paul O’Connell and Jamie Heaslip also make their first starts as Kidney has made eight changes in personnel to the team which lost 19-12 to France in Bordeaux.
In doing so, he has reunited the pack that played in the last four of Ireland’s Six Nations games, as well as perming Tomás O’Leary with Jonathan Sexton again in the fervent hope that the management’s apparently de facto first-choice scrumhalf rediscovers his best form.
Beyond that, with Eoin Reddan on the bench, and Isaac Boss starting ahead of Conor Murray against Connacht, that would appear to confirm the scrumhalf pecking order, while the anticipated promotion of Felix Jones for his first Test start against the French, after impressive cameos in Edinburgh and Bordeaux, confirms the feeling that he is ahead of Geordan Murphy.
Murphy has played in every position in the Irish backline bar scrumhalf during the course of his 69 caps, but missed out on the 2003 finals due to a broken leg and four years ago was confined to one try-scoring start in the final pool game against Argentina.
When asked of his impressions of Jones to date, Kidney perhaps underlined the significance of the selection. “I always think that as a coach the biggest compliment you can give a guy is to pick him. So I suppose by giving him that ahead of other fellas for this one is that. He’s worked extremely hard to get back to where he is and I believe he’s deserving of a go.”
If, as seems likely, Murphy’s Test career is to finish, then the same may well be true of Peter Stringer after 98 caps. The quickest passing scrumhalf of the quintet in the original squad, Stringer’s “opportunities” thus far amount to a replacement’s appearance for Munster against La Rochelle.
However, Kidney maintained: “Obviously everybody wants to be involved, so it does put him in a certain situation, but it doesn’t mean he’s fifth . . . With Peter’s skill level and the balance that you would maybe need to bring in your number nine position, he would be very much in the frame.”
Come kick-off on Saturday, 29 players will have started the three Tests, with Stephen Ferris set to become the 34th player used in the three Tests when appearing off the bench on Saturday. Furthermore, of course, Kidney and co have been watching their players in training for the best part of two months now, but as the coach also admitted, despite Ireland having opted for the most numerous warm-up schedule, things were never going to be entirely fair.
“We said that at the start, that it wasn’t going to be a case of dividing out the 400 minutes and giving everybody their share. Unfortunately sport isn’t always fair, so we’ve had to take into account knowing what guys can bring, knowing how lads finished last season, see how they went in pre-season, and then make judgements based on all those facts.”
Whereas the management oughtn’t to be overtly concerned that Tommy Bowe has not featured in any of the games before Monday’s cut-off point for the 30-man World Cup squad, they will be especially grateful that Ferris is in line to return before the 30-man World Cup squad is finalised on Monday.
According to Kidney the only injuries Ferris has provoked in training have been to team-mates. Nothing new there then. He was particularly encouraged to see Ferris and Bowe, one-time Ulster team-mates, running “full tilt” at each other in a supposedly non-contact drill. More pertinently, as he put it: “both got up.”
The remarkable David Wallace has turned 35 since we last saw him and far from his powers diminishing, Kidney said: “In fact he’s going so well that he tightened up a little bit yesterday. He’s too fit for his age maybe. He’s going well but he did tighten up yesterday and he didn’t train this morning but we’re hoping that he’ll still be okay for Saturday’s match.”
Relieved to be back playing, Brian O’Driscoll ventured: “We’re in a different place with this squad in that in previous years, for the most part, you would have been fairly sure what 29 or 30 might have been, but I think genuinely this year people are going to look at the squad and see people left out and think ‘janey, there’s some really top quality players being left out’.
“That’s a testament to the squad that’s been developed and also to the attitude of the guys and backing themselves.”
As D-Day looms, he added: “In the last few days people have been fairly relaxed but I’m sure inside people are very nervous and hopeful of making the plane. There’s no point in wearing those emotions on your sleeve. But with two games coming on Thursday and Saturday there’s last impressions to be made on Declan before the squad is picked.”
Regarding the 30-man squad, Kidney admitted: “I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a few, but let’s play the games and finalise things on Monday.”
He said the problem was who to omit, not who to pick and conceded: “It’ll be tough going, because fellas live a dream and for some that will be cut short.”
