Murphy's fortunes swing again

SIX NATIONS NEWS IN KEEPING with Geordan Murphy's wildly swinging fortunes with the Irish rugby team over the years, the fullback has again added to the selection headaches of Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan in the run-up to Saturday's match against Wales. Murphy, who was inspirational against Scotland in Ireland's last match, was substituted because of injury during Leicester's English Premiership match against Leeds on Saturday.

Murphy left the field limping just 22 minutes into the game. The player has been troubled by an Achilles injury for two weeks and the former Puma boss and now Leicester head coach, Marcelo Loffreda, reported the Irishman was unlikely to be fit for next Saturday.

The Ireland management yesterday released a statement: "Geordan Murphy suffered a strain to his right Achilles tendon while playing for his club at the weekend. Murphy is unlikely to train tomorrow (Monday) and the injury will be further assessed over the next 24 hours by the Ireland medical team."

The statement added: "Girvan Dempsey has continued with his rehabilitation programme for his hip strain and will take some part in training tomorrow."

If Murphy cannot put himself forward for selection, O'Sullivan may have to look further afield as Dempsey is also clearly no certainty to be fully fit.

Leinster's Rob Kearney, who has been playing on the Irish left wing, is a natural fullback and has stated that 15 is his favourite position but he would be seen as extremely inexperienced to go into that position at such a high level in the event of Dempsey or Murphy being unable to play.

Shane Horgan was left out of the Leinster starting side that played Connacht on Saturday, although, he did replace Felix Jones at half time and went on to score an excellent try.

Horgan's absence from the Leinster starting team, importantly, means that he did not get the required 80 minutes of rugby O'Sullivan may have felt he needed to bring him up to Six Nations speed.

The France lock Pascal Pape has been ruled out of next weekend's game against Italy with a knee injury, team manager Jo Maso said yesterday.

He will be replaced in the squad by Albi's Arnaud Mela, who has two caps to his name.