RUGBY: IN A change from previous seasons, frontline Irish internationals will be available to their provinces from the first or second rounds of the Magners League, and ultimately will be free to play roughly as many games during the 2010-11 season as in recent campaigns.
Ideally, the IRFU’s Player Management Programme would like to see a ceiling of 26 to 32 games for its leading players, including Heineken Cup and Magners League play-offs. Given this includes up to nine Test matches and six pool rounds of the Heineken Cup, it’s unlikely the frontliners will play in more than half of their province’s Magners League programme at most, which has been increased from 18 matches to 22 to accommodate the inclusion of two Italian sides, Treviso and Aironi Rugby, this season.
“The difference this year is the player management programme is not front-ended,” explained Irish team manager Paul McNaughton yesterday. “What I mean by that is in the past there’s been a situation where a lot of the players were not back until Magners League four or five. This year the vast majority of players will be back for Magners League one and all other players will be back by Magners League two. Barely eight or nine players will not start in Magners League one and then every player will play in Magners League two.”
The programme has, McNaughton says, been agreed with the provinces, “with more of an emphasis of working with the guys throughout the year, with the objective at the end of the season they are in decent shape. Most of the players will play the same amount of games this season as they would have played last season”.
Each player is assessed individually. Of the core group of 10 players who remained relatively injury free and played in at least eight of Ireland’s 10 matches last season, the most active was Cian Healy, who played 31 matches. This included all 10 Tests for Ireland, all but one in the starting line-up, and a further 13 Magners League games (three as a replacement) as well as eight Heineken Cup games.
Following on from Jamie Heaslip’s 33-game campaign in 2008-09 (which culminated in six games for the Lions) the Leinster and Irish number eight would have played 29 games last season but for his red card against New Zealand. In addition to nine Tests for Ireland, he played in 11 league games (one off the bench) and eight Heineken Cup games.
Similarly Tomás O’Leary played in 10 league games (two off the bench) and 18 times in total to go with his 10 appearances for Ireland for a total of 25 starts and three games as a replacement, while Donncha O’Callaghan played in 10 league games for Munster as part of his 26-match workload. Brian O’Driscoll, the only man to start all 10 Irish Tests, played in eight league ties as well as eight European ties, for an overall tally of 26 matches.
Ronan O’Gara started 12 league games for Munster as part of his 27 matches (three off the bench) whereas John Hayes made just seven league appearances as part of their 21 and 23 match totals.
It’s also worth noting two of the additional league rounds will be during the November Test window, and the other two on Six Nations weekends, in addition to the two blank weekends during the Six Nations, so presumably the Welsh, Scots and Italians will also be indisposed on those weekends.
A 35-man Irish squad (including the likes of Luke Fitzgerald, Denis Leamy and Keith Earls) trained at Campbell College in the first day of a two-day get-together yesterday.
All the leading players were granted four weeks holidays, the last of them returning to work on July 26th and are thus in at least their fifth week of pre-season. Declan Kidney and his assistants have also taken two sessions with each of the provinces.
Depending on the provinces’ progress in the league and Europe, the players’ season will be extended by anything up to three weeks until the end of May after the 22nd round of league matches at the start of that month. They will then have three or four weeks’ holidays prior to a four- or five-week pre-season (beginning with their provinces) in the build-up to the World Cup, for which a provisional 50-man squad will be named around June 17th.
A fifth match against a regional selection is likely to be added to a four Test warm-up programme against Scotland (away), and France (away and home, with the first to see Ireland play in the Stade Velodrome in Marseilles for the first time) and England (home). The deadline for the announcement of the 30-man squad is August 22nd, after the two French games.
COUNTDOWN TO THE WORLD CUP– Nov 6th: Ireland v South Africa, Aviva Stadium; Nov 13th: Ireland v Samoa, Aviva Stadium; Nov 20th: Ireland v New Zealand, Aviva Stadium; Nov 27th: Ireland v Argentina, Aviva Stadium; Feb 5th (6N): Italy v Ireland, Rome; Feb 13th (6N): Ireland v France, Aviva Stadium; Feb 27th (6N): Scotland v Ireland, Edinburgh; Mar 12th (6N): Wales v Ireland, Cardiff; Mar 19th (6N): Ireland v England, Aviva Stadium; Jun 17th: Announcement of preliminary 50-man World Cup squad; July 24th (approx): Irish squad goes into camp; Aug 6th: Scotland v Ireland, Edinburgh; Aug 13th: France v Ireland, Marseilles (tbc); Aug 20th: Ireland v France, Aviva Stadium; Aug 21st/22nd: Announcement of 30-man World Cup squad; Aug 27th: Ireland v England, Aviva Stadium; Aug 29th: Deadline for World Cup warm-up games; Sept 1st (approx): Irish squad departs for New Zealand; Sunday, Sept 11th, 2011: Ireland's World Cup opener v USA Eagles, New Plymouth.
