Ashton plans traditional Irish welcome

FOR only the second time this season Ireland will be able to field the selected side when they meet England in the International Championship at Lansdowne Road tomorrow.

As expected, loose-head prop Nick Popplewell and blind-side flanker David Corkery were passed fit yesterday, justifying the confidence manager Pat Whelan had expressed earlier in the week that they would be fit to play.

Popplewell has been under treatment for a slight hamstring strain while Corkery broke a bone in the third finger on his right hand against Wales a fortnight ago.

Doubts about the fitness of centre Jonathan Bell, who injured a rib last week, had been removed during the week when he was able to take a full part in the training sessions at the University of Limerick complex.

Popplewell and Corkery had done only light training as a precaution during the week, but yesterday they were able to join their colleagues in a morning session before the team travelled to Dublin in the afternoon.

Whelan was then in the happy position to be able to confirm the fitness of all the team when he, coach Brian Ashton and team captain Jim Staples gave a press conference last evening.

"Nick Popplewell and David Corkery are fully fit and will play. They both trained today - we have absolutely no injury problems," said Whelan.

Staples said: "We had three very good days in Limerick, the sessions were sharp, everyone has come through them very well."

On the level of expectation after the win over Wales. Staples said: "The players have not been carried away after the win in Cardiff. I know people are looking for a great performance and I hope we can give it to them, but within the squad there are no illusions. We know we have a huge task ahead of us.

"You will always hope to make a good start which we did not do in Cardiff but we overcame that. We hope to make the beginning of the match quite lively."

Ashton said: "We have studied the England side but no more or no less than we looked at the French and the Welsh sides. Most of our players are very familiar with the England players.

"We do not want to focus too much on what England may do, we worked at we hope to do. We spent most of the week in that vein. We have had three weeks together now during the championship - and I emphasise the collective `we' - and we have been able to add more variations week by week to the framework of the game we play and I am pretty confident we will produce some rugby on the same level as England."

He dismissed a suggestion from a former England international that Ireland's only hope was to destroy. "Maybe that comes from a player who played for England in the days when England were destructive rather than creative. We will seek to destroy and create as circumstances decree. It may be that it will be necessary to destroy for 10 seconds in order to create.

"It is not our intention to go out with the object of destroying England for the sake of being destructive. Our aim is to win the game and that will be attained by being creative. It would, however, be remiss of us not to give England a traditional Irish welcome. But there is going to be a lot more to our game than passion," added the coach.

England flew to Dublin last night and will train at Stradbrook this morning. The Irish players will visit Lansdowne Road this morning but will undertake no more than a light run.

Meanwhile, England captain Phil de Glanville says Staples and Eric Elwood are the players England have to stop. "I rate Staples as Ireland's most dangerous back," said de Glanville. "He is an obvious threat as a strike runner and I know that my old Bath coach Brian Ashton will be using him as often as possible.

"At Bath, Brian was always enthusiastic about bringing the full-back in as the extra man and he will appreciate that Jim has got the necessary pace. Staples might attack us on the blindside of scrums or come running at us in open play around the centres. We need to stop him."

De Glanville emphasised that England's wings and full-back Tim Stimpson have been working even more intensely than usual in an effort to combat Elwood.

"Elwood will be kicking the ball high to them - especially the wings and so we have been working hard on back-three defence," said de Glanville. "They have been practising catching high kicks until the cows come home."

De Glanville is expecting a fierce onslaught from the kick-off, saying: "It will be an ordeal for all of us - especially the 10 of us who have not played in Dublin before. They will be battering us for the first time 20 minutes or so.