Ashton's chance to end Irish hopes

Six Nations:Irish captain Brian O'Driscoll and scrumhalf Peter Stringer are expected to be available for Ireland's historic Croke Park meeting with England on Saturday. Both missed last week's encounter against France, O'Driscoll with a hamstring injury and Stringer with a fractured hand.

O'Driscoll's anticipated return to his normal position in the outside centre position will probably mean that Shane Hogan will move out to his usual place on the right wing, with Eddie O'Sullivan having to then choose between Girvan Dempsey or Geordan Murphy at fullback.

O'Driscoll was able to take a full part in the Irish training at Bray, Co Wicklow, in miserable conditions yesterday, while Stringer, because of the nature of his injury, had limited involvement. There were no other significant injury worries before O'Sullivan selects his starting team at lunch-time today.

Brian Ashton had come from an environment that lived by the motto "Good enough for England, but is it good enough for Bath?" when he came to work in Ireland in January 1997. The Lancastrian is too canny to talk about the dysfunctional relationship he subsequently had with Ireland or to provide Eddie O'Sullivan's team with any ammunition before Saturday. But the reality is he was prised out of an Irish job. Ashton may well be philosophical, but Croke Park is a chance to salve the hurt of a decade ago.

It would be safe to say that England's coach probably knows as much about the Irish team he meets this weekend as he did about the one he was invited to coach, perhaps even more given the change in profile of players over those 10 years.

But one of the faces he will instantly recognise is that of Irish left wing, Denis Hickie, who is the only current player to have been part of that Ashton era. Girvan Dempsey made his debut in November the following year and by that time Ashton had departed.

Hickie made his international debut in February of the year Ashton arrived. Maybe the in form left wing has something to thank him for. From the player's viewpoint, however, those days when he was starting an international career in the shadow of the amateur game and these days are incomparably different.

"Yeah I did play under Brian Ashton," says Hickie. "There are so many differences between then and now. It was like a completely different sport 10 years ago. The game had just gone professional. Ireland hadn't quite adjusted yet. We were just in the first year.

"They were very different times and I'm sure Ireland and England are much better prepared going into this game. Certainly rugby in Ireland is now a much different game with much more hype involved.

"There are probably too many differences to mention but I think it will be very much business as usual when we take to the pitch."

Players aren't ones for injecting more emotional baggage into a game than needs be and England in Croke Park for the first time needs no gilding. Given Ireland's slow starts in the first two games and Ashton's awareness of such frailties, the more pertinent points are not arcane angles but how Ireland leave the blocks.

"I can understand why there has been a lot made about Croke Park," says Hickie. "And I don't want to be flippant about it. You can understand as well, though, that you have to prepare for this game like you do for every other game. From our point of view, we've so much stuff to work on considering we lost the last match.

"England have been criticised about how they played against Italy and stuff but you've got to look at it in the context of where they have come from.

"They've had a lot of bad results by their terms and they've had a lot of upheaval, changes of players with new guys coming back in. I think it's been very tricky for them.

"In that respect, two wins out of two . . . It takes more than the obvious to get those results on the back of what they've been through."

For Simon Easterby, who gave way in the second half to Neil Best against France, his focus is on both personal and team performances. The Llanelli captain, like Hickie, is more concerned about the nuts and bolts of undermining England and not the carnival that surrounds the match.

"It was a huge disappointment (French result)," says Easterby. "The whole occasion was fantastic but we couldn't finish it off in the end. We had a good chat on Monday and Tuesday. We feel that we're stronger from the experience. But we want to put that performance right and get the right result this weekend.

"When we lose games when the first 20 minutes have gone poorly and we've conceded an early try, we let sides get a bit of a head start. That was the case last weekend. We were a little disappointed with ourselves.

"I thought I went okay against Wales. I didn't think I went particularly well against France. I was disappointed in my own performance. A couple of things went astray and obviously I'm hoping to put it together this week. I owe a big performance if I do get selected."

For now Ireland's championship success or failure hinges on this game. Ironically, the coach who tried to lead them a decade ago into a new era, now hopes to destroy the progress the team have made and undermine ambitions that have never, in Ireland's history, been so high.