RUGBY:THE WORST-CASE scenario regarding the desperately unlucky Denis Leamy was dispelled yesterday with confirmation that the Munster and Irish backrower had not broken an ankle in Ireland's 41-6 victory against Fiji at the RDS on Saturday evening.
Nonetheless, the extent of the ligament damage he sustained will not be known for another day or two until the swelling dies down.
Remarkably, Leamy is not being ruled out of consideration for next Saturday’s game against South Africa just yet.
Were he to be sidelined, and with Shane Jennings suspended, Ireland’s backrow cupboard would look unusually bare, and sometime Leinster starter Seán O’Brien could find himself on the bench next Saturday.
The Tullow tearaway’s best work as an impact debutant on Saturday was, as usual, in his ball-carrying. He’s more in the mould of a David Wallace than a fetcher and poacher, but, in the absence of Jennings, he is the nearest Ireland has to one. Bearing in mind the damage David Pocock did last week, and facing Heinrich Brussow next Saturday, another option at seven seems advisable.
The alternative would be Neil Best, who starred against South Africa three years ago.
O’Brien typified the competition for places among the mixture of tyros and rejuvenated older guard. And Keith Earls’ two tries affirmed his well-being and should see him fill the void left by the injured Luke Fitzgerald.
“I said earlier this week that everyone is going to have to be hungry today,” reflected a contented Declan Kidney after Saturday’s win. “That’s good, I know there is going to be debate in and around the team, but you have to have that if you’re going to have a team.
“A few fellas have made me think alright, but that’s the positive,” he added. “Fellas have made everybody think and that will fill the pages. There are a few positions that are still a bit touch- and-go, but it will be like that in Ireland. Are we better off than we were? Yes.”
Jonathan Sexton’s utterly composed, man-of-the-match display at outhalf showed that not only is his hunger to be a part of this Irish set-up as acute as all the others who were straining for this opportunity, but that he’s ready for it.
For the first time since David Humphreys was an unused replacement in the 2006 Six Nations, Sexton’s performance confirmed that Ireland now have a true understudy and viable alternative to Ronan O’Gara.
“Good man, well done,” Kidney thought to himself when Sexton countered daringly up the middle with virtually his first touch in Test rugby. It wasn’t in the playbook, “but that’s what you want them to do,” said Kidney.
“You ask them to be themselves, and if you looked at Jonathan’s games in schools and in the A games for Leinster and Ireland, that’s what he’s done. He’s just brought that here now, and there will be many more stages, I’m sure, for him to do that, both with Leinster and Ireland.”
Next up then, the stand-out fixture of this November window.
“We try to prepare the same for every single game, because if we didn’t then we’d be disrespecting the jersey,” said Kidney. “But if you prepare the same for every game, then some games do have an adrenalin flow all of their own. Saturday is one, and if we prepare the same, I’m sure the adrenalin will show that bit more.
“But it will flow for them as well then too. After three losses, all of a sudden they have the bit between their teeth,” said Kidney in reference to South Africa’s 32-10 win over Italy in Udine, “and this is their swansong for the season, and there’s nothing like turning over the Grand Slam champions.
“That would be the icing on the cake for them. We’re two weeks into it. Were we a little bit better today than last week? Well, the pressure that will come on us next week will be greater than the two weeks put together. So we just have to see how we bear up to that.”
