Aiming to build on solid platform

Rugby: Johnny Watterson talks to Girvan Dempsey who, despite recent criticism, believes his game will get stronger

The bad lands on a rugby pitch stretch across the 22-metre line just behind the full back. It is where mistakes are punished, where a game that has been played for low returns in the middle of the park suddenly breaks into life. It's the full back's patch, a strip of land that can define him.

Outhalves, scrumhalves, full backs occasionally find themselves alone on that stretch of muddy catwalk. Under the lens to be picked apart or to be crowned each time they deal with the ball, public tumbles are not uncommon.

In the Irish team Girvan Dempsey is a long punt from Brian O'Driscoll's streaked hair or Gordon D'Arcy's experimental smig. Maybe he could be Ireland's sexiest man but Dempsey looks and behaves as if he could just as easily do work on your house as engage in one of those Lansdowne Road high-wire acts in front of a baying crowd.

In recent games for Leinster, the critics declared Dempsey's nerve had frayed a little. The hesitant catch, a misdirected kick, signs of wear. Loud shouts filled the news pages asking for an understudy to fill the slot. While the press barked, Eddie O'Sullivan stood by his full back.

Against France Dempsey moved closer to his reassuring form. There were no roses chucked at his feet from the Stade de France crowd but the game has brought closure for Ireland's full back after a few tough, anxious weeks.

"As a professional, you will always be criticised. To a certain extent, I suppose it can get to you," he says. "You are out there in the public eye. Sometimes you're reading it first hand and at other times you are hearing it through the grape vine. I think you know your self. You know your own ability, what you are capable of doing, when you play well or if you're not playing well.

"The press point of view, there has been in the past few weeks a lot of criticism thrown at me. I think a lot of it has been unfounded and a lot of it has been very unconstructive as well. It's going to be fairly obvious if you are not playing well and Eddie O'Sullivan is the type of guy who picks players on form and he'll be the first to tell you he wants more."

Most of the censure arrived after Leinster failed to impress at Lansdowne Road against Cardiff last month. The full back skills that Dempsey had built a reputation around deserted him on the night. His form strayed and combined with a limp Leinster effort, the avalanche began.

"I suppose it can be hurtful towards family and friends. You can't block out a family reading that stuff. But all players who have family and friends do read the press," he says. "Some say they don't but you hear second hand. They like to see what's going on and what's being said. But they understand that as a professional sportsman you are in the limelight. Sometimes it can be hard to take but you've got to let them know that sometimes, it's the way it is."

After 45 caps Dempsey faces constant pressure for his place as Kevin Maggs, Malcolm O'Kelly and Victor Costello have experienced. With Geordan Murphy returning this weekend to the Leicester squad to face London Irish, there is more intensity in the contest to wear the number 15 shirt is likely. It's the way O'Sullivan likes it. He's a non-believer in divine rights and prefers a competitive edge. Dempsey knows too that Murphy enjoys the catwalk. While the Terenure player succeeds in his fearlessly reliable play, Murphy excels in goose-stepping up the park looking for scores.

"I think there are key positions," he says. "It's where you are more in the open and where people can see you. It's the basics. I think that's where the criticism started. With some of the Leinster performances my kicking didn't go so well. Because you are so exposed people see this. But I thought my play against France was fairly solid and sound. At the start of an international campaign it is good to get a starting block like that down early and to build from it. I can definitely see myself going forward and getting stronger.

"No matter what sport you are in, you can't look back at things you've done wrong. It's like a goal kicker. He can't constantly contemplate the kick he missed or that will affect the next one."

Stung by the pitch of it all, Dempsey still knows what he's good at, knows his game hasn't soured. The only one that matters, O'Sullivan, agrees. "When a high ball comes over," said the coach on Wednesday. "Girvan Dempsey is the sort of guy you want underneath it."