RUGBY/IRELAND TOUR OF NEW ZEALAND:WITH A precarious world ranking of eight in a year of a World Cup draw and an unprecedented three-Test tour away to the world champions, Declan Kidney and his fellow coaches are obliged to put Ireland's best foot forward. Hence there is a predictably familiar look to the 29-man squad for this little jaunt in the 11th month of a World Cup season.
“We have to go down and play the best rugby we’ve played for a long time to win the series,” said Kidney, but as the head coach put it, “we also have a remit to keep some small eye on the future”.
To that end there is no room for Leo Cullen, Shane Jennings and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Paddy Wallace. Along with Brian O’Driscoll, back as captain, and Donnacha O’Callaghan, Wallace was part of the Ireland Under-19s team that won the Fira World Cup in 1998 when coached by Kidney, and is in a rich vein of form – witness his creation of Dan Tuohy’s try last Saturday.
However, with D’Arcy, Wallace and the Munster-bound James Downey all of a similar age, Kidney ventured they “will retire at the same time and everyone will be searching around looking for someone new in that position”.
Fair enough, if tough on Wallace, but if the same rationale was applied at outhalf, given Ronan O’Gara cannot last for ever, there seemed a compelling case to incorporate a 30th player and continue Ian Madigan’s tutelage, especially as Wallace won’t be there to cover outhalf.
“It could be the case a guy gets called in, but you can only bring so many on these tours,” said Kidney. “It’s not possible to bring 45 and three for each position. We do have a smaller playing base so there’s a responsibility as to how many you bring, how many you give games to, making sure the next line of fellas get a good pre-season because they are going to be in demand from the provinces.”
Nonetheless, if Madigan is called up at short notice for a 24-hour journey mid-tour, it will only add to the feeling an opportunity has been missed. Somebody really should assure the reluctant utility man, Keith Earls, that this won’t be part of his remit. By the same token, Kidney added “that’s why I think it is vitally important we bring through Dan Tuohy and Donnacha Ryan, who are five years younger” than Cullen and the existing crop of locks.
Compared to the 30-man squad for the World Cup, aside from Wallace, Cullen, Jennings and Tony Buckley, Geordan Murphy and Jerry Flannery have retired, Tommy Bowe, Denis Leamy, and Tom Court (who suffered a broken hand in Saturday’s final which has sidelined him for six weeks) have been ruled out for a return to the Land of the Long White Cloud.
Six of the squad who weren’t at the World Cup are the uncapped Munster duo of winger Simon Zebo and hooker Mike Sherry, and Ulster tighthead Declan Fitzpatrick, with Tuohy, Darren Cave and Peter O’Mahony. Four places are to be filled, pending further medical examination, with Kidney intimating they will be filled by the uncapped Connacht loosehead Brett Wilkinson, Paul O’Connell, Chris Henry and Isaac Boss.
O’Connell had another procedure on his knee last week, following which a cast will be removed next Thursday, with Kidney rating his chances of travelling “on the upper side of 50-50”.
Boss, who failed a pre-match test on the strained quadriceps he suffered in Leinster’s semi-final win over Clermont, should make the plane, though in the event he doesn’t, Tomás O’Leary and Peter Stringer were the contenders Kidney mentioned, not Paul Marshall. Likewise, if as seems likely, Kevin McLaughlin and the uncapped wingers Dave Kearney and Craig Gilroy miss out, they will be entitled to be disappointed.
Gert Smal pronounced himself fit for the tour, and revealed his wife was happy with his weight loss, in what will be a searching three-match examination of his forwards. “It’s going to be quite tough. There’s a lot of expectations after what happened to us in the Six Nations game (against England). Maybe some people call it fear, I call it opportunities. We looked at a lot of things in terms of the scrum, specifically in that game, and identified five things that we can fix there.”
Backs coach Less Kiss maintained there were “a lot of pleasing things through the Six Nations we were happy with”, a 24-hour-plus journey a week before the first Test ensured “we will have to be as un-complex as possible in terms of playing with the intensity that’s going to be required” and thereafter expand their approach.
New Zealand will be missing the retired Brad Thorn and the injured Jerome Kaino, but as to the notion the first Test might offer Ireland the best chance of a first win against them, Kidney noted the All Blacks put 66 points on Ireland in the first Test two years ago.
Irish dominance of the Heineken Cup would appear something of a double-edged sword, not least in the pressure this now puts on Kidney and his management team, but he maintained: “Not really, no. Would I prefer to have them losing? Not at all. It’s brilliant they’re winning. Our players are incredibly honest; they don’t pick and choose their matches. The challenge for them is to come off what they’re doing and get themselves up for the national team, because it’s upwards we have to go in everything we’re doing. That’s why they’re called Test matches, because they test every thing you do. So where they’re coming from is brilliant.”
IRELAND (squad v New Zealand): Forwards: R Best (Ulster), S Cronin (Leinster), S Ferris (Ulster), D Fitzpatrick (Ulster), C Healy (Leinster), J Heaslip (Leinster), S O’Brien (Leinster), D O’Callaghan (Munster), P O’Mahony (Munster), M Ross (Leinster), D Ryan (Munster), M Sherry (Munster), D Tuohy (Ulster), A.N. Other, A.N. Other, A.N. Other. Backs: D Cave (Ulster), G D’Arcy (Leinster), K Earls (Munster), R Kearney (Leinster), F McFadden (Leinster), C Murray (Munster), B O’Driscoll (Leinster, capt), R O’Gara (Munster), E Reddan (Leinster), J Sexton (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster), S Zebo (Munster), A.N. Other.
IRELAND’S NEW BOYS: Three in line for full caps
MIKE SHERRY
Age: 23.
Born: Limerick.
Height: 1.85 m (6ft 1in)
Weight: 104 kg (16st 5 lb)
Position: Hooker
Called into the Ireland squad at the World Cup as precautionary cover for Rory Best, Sherry played for the Ireland Wolfhounds against England Saxons in January 2012 just after recovering from an ankle injury. A product of Ardscoil Rís and Garryowen, Sherry was promoted to a full contract this season after two years in the Munster Academy and would have started more than 14 matches for Munster but for injury. A naturally quick and strong carrier, the Munster cognoscenti have long had high hopes for him.
DECLAN FITZPATRICK
Age: 28.
Born: Bromsgrove, Worcester, England.
Height: 1.80 m (5ft 11in).
Weight: 110 kg (17st 4 lb).
Position: Prop.
A technically proficient tighthead at scrum time and a good defender, Fitzpatrick has been on the radar since the 2006/07 season when he was selected for the Ireland A Churchill Cup Squad. A graduate of the University of Ulster at Jordanstown who plays with Dungannon, Kidney confirmed that Fitzpatrick’s stand-out performance in his second comeback game after injury in Ulster’s Heineken Cup semi-final against Edinburgh sealed his inclusion.
SIMON ZEBO
Age 21.
Born: Cork.
Height: 1.83 m (6ft).
Weight: 96 kg (15 st 1 lb).
Position: Wing.
A product of PBC, Cork Con and the Munster and Irish under-18 and under-20 sides, Zebo was fast-tracked in to a professional contract this season and responded with 12 tries in just 19 starts and four sub appearances. Needs to sharpen his defensive game but has augmented natural speed and finishing with better conditioning and work-rate. His father, Arthur, hails from Martinique and missed out on the Montreal Olympics in 1976 as an 800 metres runner and his sister Jessika is striving to make the Olympic times for the 400m.
