RUGBY IRELAND TOUR:INJURIES CONTINUE to bedevil both sides in advance of tomorrow's Test, and the Wallabies yesterday lost lock Nathan Sharpe due to recurring back spasms. Although they have lost a sharp operator, as Les Kiss put it, he will nevertheless be replaced by Mark Chisholm, who won his 50th cap against England.

Admitting it was a blow, the Wallabies’ Kiwi coach Robbie Deans noted with typical dryness, “he’s not particularly excited about it either. If it had been one episode of back spasm it would have been okay but we had a recurrence last night. It was one too many and we couldn’t afford to risk it. It first became evident on Tuesday. It was treated, it was coming right but late Wednesday he had another episode. He’s up now but he wasn’t able to train so we made the decision.”

Against that, it is, as Deans said, a great opportunity for Chisholm, albeit one that has clearly come with a warning. “We had a conversation the other day. He became a 50-cap Test player last week so that conversation was essentially along the lines that his apprenticeship is over. Time to start getting a return.”

Deans has overseen a remarkable transformation in his two years as Wallabies’ coach, giving first caps to 21 debutants, as a great team grew old together and he’s been hit with a raft of injuries.

Even though observers such as the former Wallabies centre Andrew Slack (who played with Wanderers) believes they are still on course to become a very good team in 12 months time, whereas Matt Williams for one believes that their best cycle will be in the ensuing four years, it doesn’t seem as if Deans is being cut much slack for this.

By contrast, Graham Henry has picked the most experienced front-row in history along with almost the oldest lock pairing, which prompted one slightly concerned Aussie journalist to ask Deans yesterday about this contrasting approach.

“There is always two different possibilities,” he reasoned. “For me it’s not so much about age as about experience in the game and time in the game. They’ve been at both extremes. They’ve exposed a group and they’ve also got a lot of experience there. Their last World Cup side which was a pretty young side was the most experienced combination they’d ever put on the ground. They’ve got that luxury at both ends of the scale.”

This has also been accompanied by the Wallabies’ drop in world ranking this week from three to four. “We’d much rather go the other way but it’s indicative of what’s being done on the ground, I guess. It’s not something we put a lot of focus on. We just focus on the game at hand.”

But asked why they had dropped, he became both more talkative and defensive than normal. “We’re working hard on the solutions but how long have you got. There are an awful lot of contributing factors. Essentially in terms of the rankings, we’ve dropped a couple of games we shouldn’t have and that’s hurt us.”

Lamenting the defeats to Scotland last November and England last week, and the draw in Croke Park, Deans noted that otherwise they could have won their last seven games in a row.

Turning those near misses into wins is, he said, “eminently do-able and we are getting some consistency underneath that and obviously Tri-Nations has been demanding because it is the toughest tournament in the world and the reality is that we are third-ranked to date within the Tri-Nations. That won’t be straightforward to turn around but it can be done.”

Outside, as well as within the Wallabies squad, there is a palpable demand for victory over Ireland, but this compelled Deans to remind his audience: “You need to understand that Ireland have motivations of their own. They won’t be happy with their recent history either but you get what you deserve ultimately and we have the opportunity to do something this weekend and it’s probably a good thing on the back of last week.

“We expect a huge amount of passion. It’s their last outing before a break and next year is a World Cup year so it’s a last opportunity for all their players to stake a claim. It’s very important to them and that will be evident, I think.”