All in the scrum

A rugby miscellany

Third time lucky? Cullen hoping to cap a good career

FORMER Ireland and Ulster second row, Gary Longwell, who will turn 40-years-old in July was coach of the Ulster Ravens side last night. Longwell had a long and distinguished career since he first played for Ireland against Japan back in 2000.

Yesterday, Ireland second row, Leo Cullen, was selected in the replacements for Sunday’s game against Scotland.

He will very likely be part of Declan Kidney’s Irish squad for the rest of the campaign and summer.

Cullen will recall it was Longwell who was selected before him by Eddie O’Sullivan for the 2003 World Cup. In the 2007 edition in France Cullen was again passed over, which leaves this Six Nations an important tournament for the aimiable Wicklow man.

He will hope to get longer game time in Murrayfield on Sunday than he did against France. But, in a World Cup sense, maybe it will be third-time lucky for a player who deserves it in spades.

Feeling the strain up front: Little respite for busy props

DECLAN Kidney wasn’t quite bemoaning the fact, but pointed out that the 23-man panel for provincial rugby compared to 22 for Six Nations makes quite a difference to the players, whose bodies take a battering especially in the front row.

He made the point at Wednesday’s team announcement that Leinster and Ireland loosehead prop Cian Healy (left) had to go the full 80 minutes against one of the best tightheads in the world, Leicester and Italy’s Martin Castrogiovanni, and then tog out again and do it all over again against the French team.

The point the Irish coach was making was that a prop playing for 60 minutes and then coming off is a much fresher animal when he is asked to play a game the following week. It’s just one adjustment the provincial players have to make stepping up a level and, of course, Tom Court’s usefulness in being able to play both sides of the frontrow.

Grand Slam: Up for grabs

ALTHOUGH there are three rounds remaining in this season’s Six Nations only two of the six teams, England and France, can win the Grand Slam.

But unless England play out their first home draw against France since February, 1985, when the teams failed to score a try between them, then that will be reduced to one team.

In that last drawn match the scoring was dominated by the boots of the two outhalves, Rob Andrew and Jean-Patrick Lescarboura.

If this is a Grand Slam-free tournament, it will be only the third time in ten seasons this has happened. Landing the Six Nations title any way you can is worth more than €3.5 million in prizemoney.

Glass still half-full

MATCH statistics can sometimes be revealing and occasionally don’t reflect too well on the game.

Ireland’s match against France almost two weeks ago was seen as one of the more exciting matches in the way it unfolded, but consider how much time the ball was actually in play, or, possession.

Each team had approximately 23 minutes possession each, which would seem to indicate the ball was in play for 46 minutes out of the 80 minutes of normal time.

With time added on, that would approximate the ball being in play for around half the time available. France will also look back at the match and wonder how they were in possession of the ball for only nine minutes in the first half.

Ashton's antics: Arouse ire

CHRIS Ashton’s belly splash as he crossed for another Six Nations record-breaking try hasn’t been welcomed everywhere in England.

Martin Johnson hasn’t much time for such extravagant acts, but, in blogsphere, Ashton’s dives are not so lauded either.

“Ashton’s victory dive is fine . . . right up to the point when he drops it and we lose as a result, then we’ll crucify him,” said one.

“I feel it’s a risk that has no value,” said another.

“You can celebrate how you like after you have scored, not before,” added a third person.

We, however, prefer the punter who said Ashton was fine but questioned former England winger, Dan Luger, who mimed a six gun shootout when he scored. Aghhh.