Costello to miss Welsh match

Victor Costello will almost certainly be ruled out of the Five Nations championship game against Wales at Wembley on Saturday week after X-rays revealed he damaged rib cartilage during Saturday's defeat to France.

He will thus also miss next Saturday's crunch AIL Division One game between St Mary's and Shannon.

Of some consolation to the Irish team management is the likelihood that Andy Ward, ruled out of last Saturday's game after suffering a knee ligament injury in Ulster's European Cup final win the week before, will be available for the Welsh match.

The team management will convene on Tuesday evening to select a squad for that game, which will be announced on Wednesday morning. Ward's name will be included in a squad which may initially number one or two more than the regulation 22, with the starting XV and replacements' bench to be finalised early next week. Ward will not be asked to prove his fitness by playing for Ballynahinch this weekend.

That one enforced change apart, the main point of debate exercising the minds of Warren Gatland, Donal Lenihan and Philip Danaher is likely to be the place kicking issue, after David Humphreys missed four kicks from seven, including an injury time penalty which would have won the game.

Your heart went out to Humphreys. "It underlined to me how seven days is a long time in sport, from 4.0 on Saturday afternoon at Lansdowne to the same time the following week, from sheer elation to the depths of despair," he said. "Probably the one before halftime is the one I should have got, though I still should have got the last one as well. What's so disappointing was to play so well and lose that way when we should have won."

The management would seem to have four options: a) to retain David Humphreys both as outhalf and place kicker; b) to replace him in both regards with Eric Elwood; c) to pick Simon Mason at full back, or d) to select Niall Woods at left-wing and give him the kicking duties.

Bearing in mind consistency of selection has been a byword of the Gatland era, and an overdue statement of faith in an ever-improving squad, of the four, the first option would seem the most likely. Humphreys' place kicking ratio has been around 80 per cent for Ireland in the last year, and he was possibly suffering on Saturday for not having kicked competitively this season, save for two outings with Dungannon.

Furthermore, having struck the ball well in training all week, he was unfortunate that the wind whipped up, which has always made Lansdowne Road notoriously tricky for kickers. If memory serves, Michael Kiernan was the victim of an even easier late miss on a windy day in 1986 at the same venue when, irony of ironies, Scotland beat Ireland by 109.

As Kiernan remains Ireland's record points scorer with 308 points in 43 tests, the latter incident merely serves to underline that there would have been no guarantees had Elwood, Mason or Woods been addressing that late penalty.

Perhaps it was a bit of a gamble to pick Humphreys and nominate him as kicker, but surely it would now be an even more retrograde step to drop him for the third time in a truncated international career of just a dozen caps. He adds another dimension to Ireland's running game.

Of the other options, picking Mason would seem the least likely, whereas gambling on Woods would appear the favourite. It is true that the Irish management have reservations about the London Irish winger's defence (which would not have been entirely dispelled with his performance in Friday night's A win), but his haul of five kicks out of five underlined his good form.

Furthermore, he is the most potent running winger available by a considerable distance, and has an innate understanding with club team-mates Conor O'Shea and Justin Bishop. It would free Humphreys of that place kicking burden, and such is the way Ireland's midfield defence protects the wingers that, overall, the pluses may well outweigh the minuses. It would be a tad harsh on Girvan Dempsey, but it could be a gamble worth taking.

Another tricky poser for the Irish management was provided by Rob Henderson's Man of the Match display after replacing Jonathan Bell. Although he sported a protective brace afterwards, Bell sustained only a minor neck muscle injury which should clear up in the next few days. Which may mean more frustration for Henderson.