Preparing to face down former team-mates

Ireland Tour/Interview with Keith Gleeson: A day off for the players, many swapping rugby boots for golf shoes, while others sought nothing more demanding than a World Cup merchandise raid in Perth. Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan's main concern as training reconvenes today is scrum-half Peter Stringer and his damaged thumb. John O'Sullivan writes from Fremantle

A scan revealed that there wasn't a break but the finger is slightly swollen and bruised, although it has improved significantly in the intervening 36 hours.

The mood within the Irish camp is relaxed and positive but, for Keith Gleeson, Saturday offers the prospect of a memorable day, on and off the pitch. Although born in Dublin his upbringing was Australian, manifest in his rugby when playing for Australia at underage level and New South Wales, and this match represents his first on Australian soil in the green jersey of Ireland.

The presence of his parents and grandmother, who will fly in from Sydney for the Test, will add more significance to the occasion for Gleeson.

He has already confronted the awkwardness of facing down former team-mates and friends, when Ireland beat Australia 18-9 at Lansdowne Road last November, but there is little sentimentality is his recollections of an attritional battle against the team of his former home.

"The conditions last time pretty much made it an appalling game to play in. We stuck it out a lot better than Australia did but having said that we came away from the game with a lot of belief; belief that the Irish team can start to take on Southern Hemisphere teams on a regular basis. We're still lacking a little depth in certain positions but we're improving every year."

Four years cooling his heels on the sidelines at New South Wales - behind the likes of Stu Pinkerton, Mike Brial and Tiaan Strauss and then David Lyons and Phil Waugh - allied to an offer from former Leinster coach Matt Williams, saw Gleeson pitch up at Dublin airport on the morning of the second Lions Test in 2001.

He had been offered a one-year contract with the Irish province aware that there would be the possibility of international honours if his talent so decreed. Two years and 14 caps later and Gleeson is now a fixture in the Irish back row. He also knows that this Test could allow him to seal the lid on the frustration of his rugby career in Australia.

When asked what would constitute success on Saturday night, both at a team and personal level, Gleeson admitted: "We believe we are emerging in international rugby. We have a way to go yet. Certainly we want to be in the top six in the world.

"For me, I want to play well, better than the Australian back row, simply because if we do that as a team we have an even better chance of winning. Personally, it isn't a question of Australian people thinking they let this one go because Australia has three good open sides in the provinces; maybe more than one slipped through the net.

"It's fun to play against guys I have known for a long time. It'd be even nicer to come off the field having won again. I guess I'd judge my success on two things, partly on how the team has done, in terms of winning and two, how I play. That's down to how I organise the defence of the team and my own defence, my own scrapping on the ground.

"Then there's how well we keep the team pattern and shape and if I can get my hands on the ball enough to make a difference. From a personal point of view I'd rather see dry weather. My own game is better in the dry than the wet because the match is faster and that's where I come more into my element. There is also the fact that the World Cup is going to be played in dry conditions."

It hardly constitutes a surprise that Gleeson defended Irish rugby to the Aussie media.

"On the physical side of the game we are starting to produce players of an equivalent size, strength and power as teams like Australia. The next stop now with increased competition is to produce players who think better on the field under pressure: develop good brains in the players."

Gleeson knows that whatever way he dresses up Saturday's Test, it's a game he fervently wants to win. He has a point to prove and not simply to himself.

Meanwhile, Australian centre Morgan Turinui passed a fitness test yesterday and will take his place against Ireland at the Subiaco Oval in Perth on Saturday.