Compiled by Gerry Thornley
Coaches everywhere
IT MUST be a unique scenario, not only in Irish but also in global terms. Consider this: in addition to the caretaker coaches, not only are the Ireland head coach-in-waiting and manager-in-waiting in Australia; so too are Leinster's head coach, the departed Leinster assistant coach, the Ulster coach and the Munster assistant coach, and indeed the former Munster forwards coach. Indeed, all four of last season's provincial coaches and three of their assistants are down under this week.
With Connacht coach Michael Bradley in charge of Ireland, and Declan Kidney assuming a watching brief, Leinster's Michael Cheika and his erstwhile assistant, David Knox, Ulster's Matt Williams and Munster's assistant coach, Tony McGahan (likely to be the next Munster coach), are all at home on holiday here, while Jim Williams is in his new role with the Wallabies.
Kidney and the Ireland manager, Paul McNaughton, will arrive in Melbourne tomorrow.
Reddan left counting cost
GIVEN THEIR lighter load this week, with days off on Monday and Wednesday, the Irish players had plenty of streets and shopping malls to walk, along with any number of high-quality restaurants to choose from.
Sometimes, they go out in groups, they throw their cards into a bowl and the last one out is landed with the bill. Having been demoted to the bench, the unfortunate Eoin Reddan then had to stump up the 600-plus Australian dollars (about €400).
Good deeds high on the menu
IN WELLINGTON some of the Ireland squad had attended a function hosted by the Irish Consul General to New Zealand, Rodney Walsh, where the guest speaker was Prime Minister Helen Clark and a cheque was handed over to the New Zealand Heritage Fund by the Irish Government.
Attendance was obligatory at Tuesday's corporate dinner, hosted by Guinness, in the Sofitel Hotel.
A charity auction in aid of the IRFU's Charitable Trust (now in its 30th year) for injured players featured the night's most prized item - an encased guitar signed by all four members of U2.
Despite its valuation of 6,000 Australian dollars, however, the highest bid for the boys' guitar was 2,300 dollars (around €1,500).
Cheika makes long-term contract
MICHAEL CHEIKA, for one, has definitely been taking a break from rugby and interviewing for any vacancies. The Leinster coach took his girlfriend, Stephanie Dunn, to dinner last Friday in his brother's restaurant on Wollongong Bay on the outskirts of Sydney, also inviting along his mother, grandparents and other family and friends.
"I think they were probably expecting a going-away party or maybe an engagement party, but we'd decided a week before to spring a little surprise on them, and called in the celebrant to get married there and then as everyone formed a circle," says Cheika. "It was memorable for us and great for my mum and her parents."
Even the rain, Cheika said, added to the occasion.
He and Stephanie met two years ago in Sydney airport when he had returned home from his first year with Leinster and was travelling to Hamilton to see the first Test between Ireland and the All Blacks.
