Ireland pull out the stops for Ulster game

After the Musgrave mauling, no messing this time. Unsurprisingly, given their World Cup opener is just a further 13 days away, the Irish management have selected the guts of their first-choice Test XV for this Sunday's final warm-up match, against Ulster at Queen's University.

As an addendum, only six of the Irish XV which started in the defeat to Munster are retained. Indeed, it looks suspiciously like a first-choice Irish back line, and the three possible exceptions up front are the three changes from the team which started in the win over Argentina three weeks ago.

The rotating policy between the three frontline locks sees Malcolm O'Kelly come into the second row, while Kieron Dawson's need for games after his off-season groin operations means he is named in a back row which also accommodates David Corkery in the absence of the injured Trevor Brennan.

"Well, it's probably close to the Test team," admitted Irish manager Donal Lenihan, following the team's delayed announcement in Belfast yesterday.

Regarding the selection of the recuperating and rusty Dawson, Lenihan explained: "We felt he deserved a run with the senior team and he needs another game before the World Cup." In fact this will only be Dawson's third start of the season.

Brennan was not considered because of a shoulder strain. "We didn't see any need to risk him, and we've been quite happy with David Corkery's form, especially in the Munster game against Ulster. He also played reasonably well in a losing cause last Friday."

The rejuvenation of Jeremy Davidson and the slightly subdued form of O'Kelly possibly makes the first-choice second row permutation for the World Cup one of the management's more contentious areas.

Unthinkable though it might have seemed not so long ago, especially in the aftermath of his awesome comeback display in the second Test at the Subiaco Oval in Perth, it wouldn't be stretching things to say that the brilliant if enigmatic O'Kelly could do with a big game.

With regard to the management's preferred second-row pairing here, Lenihan maintained: "That will probably be dictated by the opposition to some degree." However, as the Irish manager also pointed out, there will usually be a role for all three front-rank locks.

"In any game these days you're looking at playing three second rows," he added. "The one that will be on the bench will almost certainly play. That's a fact of the modern game. Plus Mal has been left out of the starting team on the last couple of occasions and in fairness to him we felt he deserves a chance to start this Sunday."

The official line on late call-up Gordon D'Arcy is that he is suffering from a stomach bug, and is thus one of nine named replacements, although this is probably as well given the 19-year-old won the nod for his selection ahead of Ulster's favourite son, Simon Mason.

That contentious decision, in some sections of the Ulster media at any rate, is liable to add some extra bite to the encounter, even if it is officially billed as a charity match in aid of the IRFU's Omagh Fund.

Lenihan expects Ulster to be "firing on all cylinders". "These are players who lost out on places in the World Cup squad and they will be determined to give us a very hard and physical game, which is exactly what we want."

Only three of Ulster's eight Irish World Cup squad members are in Ireland's starting line-up: Dion O'Cuinneagain, Paddy Johns and David Humphreys.

Shorn of their Irish octet (put like that, it almost sounds painful) Ulster have, as Lenihan observed, attempted to reinvoke the spirit of last season's European odyssey.

All told, Harry Williams has named 14 of the 22 who did duty in the final against Colomiers (including seven of the historic starting line-up) in this Sunday's squad. Not that he had much choice.

"We're struggling to fill the team," claimed Williams. "We just about got out everybody who can possibly play at this level."

An added woe was the shoulder strain sustained by Allen Clarke in the defeat to Munster, obliging Williams to rest Clarke because of the "big games coming up".

Richie Weir, who has bulked up the scrum when he's come in, replaces Clarke, with Gary Leslie switching to loose-head to accommodate their debutante Irish under-21 tight-head Simon Best.

Aside from affording some of his Euro heroes such as Stephen McKinty and Derek Topping a first outing of the season, it will also be interesting to see the 6 ft 3 in, Durban-born, Australian-reared recruit from Hong Kong, Riaz Fredericks, in his first start for his new team.

Former Irish international Niall Malone makes his first start since returning from Worcester during the summer in the place of Bryn Cunningham. At scrum-half Stephen Bell has an abdominal strain, although according to Williams "Mark Edwards would have got the start anyway. We've got to develop him and this is a chance, as the result of this match doesn't matter that much."

Maybe not to Ulster.

Ulster: S Mason; S Coulter, J Cunningham, R Fredericks, S Bromley; N Malone, M Edwards; G Leslie, R Weir, S Best, M Blair, G Longwell (capt), S McKinty, T McWhirter, D Topping. Replacements - A Matchett, B Cunningham, T Howe, S Duncan, K Walker, S Ritchie, R Irwin.

Ireland: C O'Shea (London Irish); J Bishop (London Irish), B O'Driscoll (Blackrock College), K Maggs (Bath), M Mostyn (Galwegians); D Humphreys (Dungannon), T Tierney (Garryowen); P Clohessy (Young Munster), K Wood (Garryowen), P Wallace (Saracens), P Johns (Dungannon), M O'Kelly (St Mary's College), D Corkery (Cork Constitution), D O'Cuinneagain (Ballymena, capt), K Dawson (London Irish). Replacements - G D'Arcy (Lansdowne), J Topping (Ballymena), J Bell (Dungannon), E Elwood (Galwegians), B O'Meara (Cork Constitution), J Fitzpatrick (Dungannon), R Nesdale (Newcastle), J Davidson (Castres), E Miller (Terenure College), A Ward (Ballynahinch).