Irish set for lesson at the Academy

HAVING EARNED an FA Cup replay at home after procuring a draw against Millwall in the first game at the New Den, the Arsenal captain, Tony Adams, was moved to comment: "It's never easy coming here."

Admittedly, no one bad ever been there before; but the cliche can also be readily applied here with a mite more justification. There are no easy games in New Zealand.

So it is that the Irish Development XV must pick themselves up off the canvass and square up to a hungry, young NZ Academy XV at the North Harbour Stadium in Albany outside Auckland on Monday. From the lions to the wolves.

These are the creme de la creme of New Zealand's under22 talent. They are coming together for only the second time as a team, per se for what is only the fourth game at this partially completed, state of the art new ground.

The Academy has several likely All Blacks of the future, a dozen regular Super 12 players and a couple more who have played in the world's premier provincial competition this season.

As with their inaugural "match" last March against the NZ Barbarians, the Academy will be led by a senior All Black, which prompted Brian Ashton to quip that there was an obvious weakness in the home team: resident All Black right winger Jeff Wilson in his comeback match.

Ashton, together with team manager Pat Whelan, has little option but to remain sanguine about this tour, though he admitted Thursday's 10 try to one opener against Northland was a jolt.

"I don't like losing and I don't like losing like that either," admitted the Irish coach. "I'm bitterly disappointed. But one of the easiest things for us to do now would be to play a damage limitation game, and go back to 10 man rugby. But given the aims and objectives of the tour, then we lose all credibility. It's easy to back down, but we're not aiming for the easy route. Well, I'm not anyway."

Back home, there must be people wondering if it would have been better to develop a new playing style in less demanding circumstances, say Canada or Portugal. But how real would that be?

It's true to say that big scores down under are fairly commonplace. If a game ended 93 here they'd probably run the two teams and the coaches out of the country. Huge margins can be run up fairly easily even an under strength Natal Sharks were beaten 42-8 last week by the Guetang Lions in the Super 12s. Besides which, the Irish cannot afford to he sidetracked from their longer term goals by top sided, if ultimately none too important scorelines.

Nonetheless, on the no easy games principle, coupled with the strategy to develop a new Irish game along with new international players on this Development tour, there remains the nagging suspicion that the Irish may have dived in a bit too deep in learning how to swim.

Publicly, at least, Ashton and Whelan deny this. "If you look at last night's match, for a large share of the first half we played as well as they did," maintained Whelan. "Therefore our players are appreciating what we're trying to do. Thereafter the wheels came off, but there wouldn't be any point in us going through 80 minutes against much inferior opposition and then running into this crowd down here in maybe 18 months' or two years' time. Everybody knows where we stand."

It's a valid point, all the more so if it shows Ireland are a long way behind in the modern game, perhaps more in terms of physical conditioning and sheer explosive power in contact situations than in basic ball skills.

Fresh, or not so fresh, from the many lessons from Thursday's eye opener, the squad left Whangerei yesterday morning, interrupting their 110 mile coach journey to have an unwell Eddie Halvey detained in hospital, before arriving at the upmarket Waipuna International Hotel and Conference centre in the southern, industrial outskirts of Auckland. The 17 players not included in Thursday's starting lineup against Northland were driven back through Auckland to train in Albany, while a dozen of Thursday's starting XV recuperated with a session with the weights.

In what Ashton described as a "very good session", the emphasis was on defensive work and contact work, augmented by line out and scrummaging practice amongst the forwards. This was followed by an evening video nasty of the Northland mauling, at which the participants were obliged to dissect their game, outlining the "positive and negative aspects of their own individual performances". Whelan called it personal accountability and responsibility.

Amazingly, amid the carnage, there were some positive aspects. On an individual basis, the most notable of these was probably the display of David Wallace, whose support play and ability to recycle ball in contact stood out. At 20, he's made of the right stuff.

The video reaffirmed two contrasting themes. The opening 30 minutes looked even more credible, as the Irish pack worked off a productive line out, and David Humphreys passed or ran practically everything; Wallace, David Coleman and Rob Henderson all made some inroads.

Equally though, the inability to live with the pace of the game beyond that point was hammered home, and thereafter the contest became nothing more than a typically ritual Irish exercise in tackling.

On this tour at any rate, moderate improvement from game to game is the main aspiration. "If we see a better defensive performance and a better performance in terms of ball retention on Monday night, then that will be extremely positive," said Ashton.

It's actually plenty to ask for, and enough to be going on with.

Thirteen of the players who did not begin Thursday's encounter have been included in the side to meet the Academy on Monday. Rob Henderson, Gabriel Futcher and Niall Woods are the only ones retained, with the latter switching from right to left.