Ferris gets time to prove his fitness

DECLAN KIDNEY will give Stephen Ferris every chance to prove his fitness for Saturday’s crunch Six Nations showdown against France in Paris. Protocol decrees the team be formally named tomorrow, and with the Ulster bruser having trained fully yesterday the indications are he will be named in the starting line-up.

The desire to accommodate Ferris’s physicality in the collisions and offloading skills has possibly been accentuated by the loss of Donncha O’Callaghan, with the backrow liable to be a key area. The French trio of Fulgence Ouedraogo, Imanol Harinordoquy and the human wrecking ball that is Thierry Dusautoir wreaked considerable damage against the Scots in Murrayfield last Sunday.

The French competed fiercely at every breakdown, denying the Scots any quick ball and allowing their defence to re-set. Hitting them back with every primary backrow weapon at Ireland’s disposal is therefore critical. In a war zone, you want your warriors.

Were we not at this point in a World Cup cycle, one ventures Kidney and co might have considered Alan Quinlan. In any event, Kidney confirmed Kevin McLaughlin will retain his place if Ferris is not passed fit.

“Kevin went well last week. It’s asking a lot of Kevin’s generosity to hold off and give Stephen a bit of time, but I just feel that Stephen has that little bit of experience on Kevin at the moment, so that’s why we’re just giving him time.”

The extent of O’Callaghan’s knee injury remains unclear, with Kidney unable to confirm whether the Munster lock will recover to face England in a fortnight.

“Donncha trained this morning but he just wasn’t deemed safe to take the pitch on Saturday, so at the end of the day that’s all that counts.

“It’s just a case of where he gets to, where he’s safe with the injury to play away, and hopefully he will be. That said, Leo (Cullen) did a smashing job for us last week.”

In the meantime, the state of a few more walking wounded will be assessed before the bench is finalised, ie, to choose two from Donnacha Ryan, McLaughlin and Seán O’Brien, subject to the availability of Ferris, and two from Jonathan Sexton, Paddy Wallace and Andrew Trimble, subject to the availability of Sexton and Trimble.

Sexton will only resume place-kicking practice today after recovering from his bruised leg and slightly torn quadriceps, while Trimble remains slightly hamstrung.

For the time being, though, Ronan O’Gara has been retained.

“I think Ronan’s experience, that will be more than helpful when we go to Paris,” said Kidney.

Keith Earls has been recalled at the expense of Trimble in the one change thus far from the team which beat Italy.

The French have been forced into making three changes to their 23, with Brive’s Alexis Palisson, Clermont’s Julien Malzieu and Toulouse prop Jean-Baptiste Poux replacing the injured Aurelien Rougerie, Benjamin Fall and Luc Ducalcon, and their starting line-up will be named this morning.

In Kidney’s view, such is their strength-in-depth that the enforced alterations won’t make a huge difference, least of all to Ireland’s planning.

Asked if the French might be bringing anything new to Saturday’s game, Kidney said: “I wouldn’t classify it as new because I think it’s the unexpected – but that would be traditional too.

“Last year Toulouse were playing Clermont on a Sunday night and they (France) came out on Friday night against Wales five days later with a totally different defensive system, and that managed to scupper Wales early on. That’s what they can do, they can do the unexpected.

“The boys will really have to think on their feet out there. We’ll have a broad plan, as we always do, but the job will be to think on your feet out there, the way they do, and see what’s presented. You can try and second guess it when you do see the (French) team, but even that is dangerous.”

Kidney also pinpointed the French set-pieces, continuity play and offloading game.

“If they get into their offloading, free-flowing game they can make hay against anybody,” he said, citing their wins away to New Zealand and at home to South Africa in June and November.

While Ireland may have identified areas where they might be able to keep tricks up their sleeves, most of all it will be about playing what he called heads-up rugby.

“And I think that’s the way Irish teams need to play, we need to play smart, in that if we try to play the same way every time teams will cut us down. We have a style we play, but hopefully in a system that allows the players freedom to exploit the different gaps that teams might present.”

O’Gara, John Hayes and hat-trick hero Brian O’Driscoll are the only survivors from the 27-25 win in Stade de France a decade ago, which remains Ireland’s only win in Paris since 1972.

“Back then we felt maybe that we’d stemmed the tide of losses,” reflected O’Driscoll a tad ruefully. “There’s been a big mixture of games since then, some have gotten away from us and we weren’t able to come back, and there were others where we gave them seemingly unassailable leads and nearly chased them down.

“But I don’t think it’s a case of accepting they’re going to come out of the blocks. I think it’s more about being proactive and trying to get out of the blocks yourselves and try and take the game to France.”

Though up against the beast that is Mathieu Bastareud, the latter is inexperienced and O’Driscoll observed that while such a big man “might move brilliantly in a straight line, it doesn’t necessarily shift as well when run to the side of it”.

Despite conceding in the region of 15kg, no better man to locate those aforementioned gaps.