RUGBY:NO GREAT surprises, no curve balls. Declan Kidney showed his hand for Ireland's opening RBS Six Nations assignment in Rome this Saturday along largely anticipated lines although, of course, to a degree his options were limited.

With a dozen Test players sidelined, the team could perhaps be said to be operating at two-thirds of optimum level. Hence, three players will be making their first Six Nations starts, Mike Ross, Seán O’Brien and Fergus McFadden, yet only one of these Leinster tyros will be making their full Test debut, namely McFadden.

Most of the damage in the casualty ward is in the backrow and the back three, and it’s an impressive statement of the customary loose forward strength in depth that in the absence of Jamie Heaslip and Stephen Ferris, Ireland can still field Denis Leamy, David Wallace and O’Brien, with the in-form Shane Jennings on the bench.

The permutation at the back was always going to be more untried, and the most eye-catching selection, in between McFadden and Keith Earls on the wings, is Luke Fitzgerald at fullback. After missing virtually all of last season after knee reconstruction, Fitzgerald hit the ground running this season.

He had a couple of outings at fullback, his preferred position, for Leinster and also for Ireland against Samoa (out of 13 Test starts, his only one at fullback to date) but another knee injury against the All Blacks a week later interrupted his momentum. In truth, his three comeback matches for Leinster haven’t offered a compelling case on his behalf, though his last outing, against Racing, was the best of the three.

But form is temporary, class is permanent. Fitzgerald seems simply to be trying a little too hard, and no doubt his coaches have said encouraging words in his ear, as has Brian O’Driscoll, something the Ireland skipper effectively admitted yesterday.

“When he’s really booming with confidence he’s a very, very dangerous player. Both as an attacking player but as a strategic player as well, he can mix his game well at fullback. I suppose like anyone who hasn’t played a huge amount of rugby over the last couple of months, you just encourage him to do the simple things well and not try and do the amazing (things). That will eventually come as the game unfolds, but early on just starting out well and doing what he’s done, both provincially and internationally, any time he’s been in the jersey.”

“He knows himself what’s expected of him, and I don’t envisage any issues,” added O’Driscoll, “but he’s certainly a pleasure to play with from an attacking point of view, because he has that innate ability to break tackles and offload. Whenever you can get a second touch, having given him a pass, it gives yourself an opportunity or it gives the rest of the team an opportunity to continue an attacking play.”

Gavin Duffy, the one specialist fullback, will feel unlucky, but Kidney cannot be accused of taking the safe, conservative option. “With the way the laws are now, you want a back three who are willing to take on the opposition,” said the coach yesterday. “What you are hoping is they have the wisdom to pick the right time too and I would back them as footballers to know when to come back at them and when to nudge it, kick it back. I think they have the football in them and I think they can learn to play off each other. Time will tell, but that happens with every new unit but I would back them to have the courage to have a go.”

Elsewhere, Ross packs down alongside Cian Healy, Donncha O’Callaghan wins the nod over Leo Cullen, and Tomás O’Leary has been restored at scrumhalf.

Along with Duffy, Cullen and Seán Cronin may well feel aggrieved at missing out, but by far the most curious treatment has been to Peter Stringer. Having started Ireland’s last Test against Argentina, then usurped O’Leary at Munster for the Toulon game and been one of the only two scrumhalves in the original Six Nations squad, he is not even re-routed to the Wolfhounds squad to play the English Saxons on Friday night.

The official line is the management merely want to widen the net by giving ex-Ulster man Isaac Boss and local boy Paul Marshall a run-out. That will also play to the Ravenhill gallery though the same logic does not apply to, say, Mick O’Driscoll, when there was surely an argument for looking at Dan Tuohy.

All in all, it still seems like a decidedly odd way to treat the man with the quickest pass in Ireland.