European exit leaves competitive vacuum

The summary end to the competitive representative season which was brought about by the defeats of Munster and Leinster at the semi-final stage of the Heineken European Cup last weekend has left the Irish management with a gaping, six-week void between now and Ireland's Test against Australia in Perth on June 7th.

Eddie O'Sullivan would be entitled to feel some relief that Munster and Leinster will not be beating the living daylights out of each other in a European final just a few days before going into camp in readiness for a match against vengeful world champions just a fortnight later.

Nevertheless, the collective blow to the players' morale and the competitive inactivity of the next month or so are also far from ideal.

An Irish squad of around 45 are to go into a four-day camp from May 11th at their Citywest base, and O'Sullivan will also look into the feasibility of arranging a couple of matches between now and the departure for Australia on May 30th.

"I'll meet with the four provincial directors of rugby over the next few days to see what can be done. Ideally, we'd want to have two games before we leave, whether we resurrect the interpros or something else. They wouldn't have to be full-on games, but they'd need to be fairly intense at the same time."

The need for Ulster's leading players to have some games, such as David Humphreys, Gary Longwell, Justin Fitzpatrick and Tyrone Howe, is particularly acute, and O'Sullivan confirmed that some Irish players will be released to play for the Barbarians against England on May 25th.

The Irish coach intends to take a squad of about 42 to Australia, with the front-line players then heading home for a well-earned summer rest while the remaining 27 or so travel on to Tonga and Samoa for Tests on June 14th and 20th.

Meanwhile, Connacht's incoming coach Michael Bradley was introduced to the players on Monday, although with Steph Nel heading back to South Africa this week Bradley will not be in a position to take over the reigns fully until July 6th.

In the meantime, Bradley - who led Ireland on 15 of the 40 occasions he was capped - will see out his tenure with the Irish under-21s at the World Cup finals in England in June.

"It is an opportunity to become involved as a director of rugby at one of the four provinces," said Bradley yesterday. "It was too good an opportunity to turn down. Connacht have done very well in reaching two Celtic League quarter-finals and a Parker Pen Challenge Cup quarter-final over the last two years. We've had a few people who moved on to other provinces, but that's all credit to Steph Nel."

Bradly confirmed that Connacht will be strengthening their squad with a number of new signings in the light of Jerry Flannery and Eoin Reddan relocating to Munster and Rowen Frost and Ronnie McCormack moving to Ulster.

Johnny O'Connor and Gavin Duffy are also joining Wasps and NEC Harlequins, although it is now expected that John O'Sullivan and Colm Rigney will reject overtures from Narbonne and Leeds, and remain with Connacht.