No rest for the big guns

Pool A news: Leaving the Central Coast Stadium on Tuesday night here, one wag was moved to remark that "Connacht would beat them (Namibia)", writes Gerry Thornley in Sydney.

He must have meant Leinster, but the point was a "second string" Irish team would surely do so as well.

However, Eddie O'Sullivan is not, by nature, inclined toward experimental or second-string selections and in merely altering a third of his starting team to play Namibia on Sunday in Sydney's Aussie Stadium, the Irish coach had declined to leave some of his frontliners out of the Namibian firing line. And for all their inexperience, the Namibians aren't shy about the physical stuff.

O'Sullivan gave cogent reasons for putting Ireland's best foot forward against Namibia, having maintained that little or nothing about the Namibians' performance in their 67-14 defeat to Argentina on Tuesday evening in Gosford had changed his selection thinking.

Anthony Foley and Gary Longwell were the only two players ruled out of consideration, thought the former's bruised knee will almost certainly have cleared up in time for next week. Longwell's calf strain might have threatened his World Cup more if the cruelly unfortunate back-up lock, Leo Cullen, hadn't been injured as well.

That, however, will hardly be much consolation to Longwell, especially when you see fitness coach Mike McGurn pushing the Ulster lock through punishing sessions of sit-ups and punching at a tackle bag, intermingled with press-ups.

You wouldn't want to have a limp in this Irish squad.

Foley could possibly have played this weekend, but with Keith Gleeson being rested and Victor Costello on the bench, this allows O'Sullivan the opportunity to begin Sunday's game with an entirely remodelled back row, thus giving all six back rowers a start in the opening two matches. Eric Miller and Simon Easterby will have been in let-me-at-them mode more than anyone.

"We would have picked that back row regardless because these guys need to show their stuff and we need to get the best XV on the pitch in Adelaide as well," said O'Sullivan.

The other two changes see the return of John Hayes and Ronan O'Gara, and hardly undermine O'Sullivan's contention that the team isn't exactly weakened.

"I still think it's our best foot forward for this game, in the context of winning the game and at the same time making sure everybody is locked and loaded for the following week," said O'Sullivan.

That presumes, of course, that there are no injuries against Namibia, and there was surely a case for resting more key individuals - Brian O'Driscoll, Keith Wood, Peter Stringer, Girvan Dempsey and others - given any combination from this squad ought to be capable of beating Namibia and obtaining a bonus point. A more experimental selection would have been a greater statement of faith.

O'Sullivan countered this argument thus: "We need to be careful as well here. People say maybe we should consider resting people because of the (threat of) injury, but that's the razor blade you walk with these selections.

"We've got to remember that when we play Argentina it is their final pool game. We've got three games as a team, so if we'd rested guys this week we'd have gone into our game against Argentina with just one game under our belt, which wouldn't be a smart move, I think, on our part. It's just trying to get that balance right between match practice and keeping people healthy."

Nevertheless, is this selection looking remotely beyond the Argentina game? If Ireland have designs on reaching the quarter-finals or semi-finals (and why not?), then this selection means that the frontline players (two-thirds of this team) are going to play five or six matches in successive weekends. That is a big ask.

Nor can it be ideal for squad morale that Frankie Sheahan, Simon Best, Neil Doak, Anthony Horgan and Paddy Wallace, as well as Longwell, have seemingly been deemed surplus to requirements already, barring injuries.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the Argentinians' tougher schedule has obliged Marcelo Loffreda to start 29 and employ all 30 of his squad in their opening two games. Thus, when all the squad members adjourned to their hotel on Tuesday the high fives and the sing song was perhaps more genuinely felt.

By comparison, barring injury, half a dozen of the Irish squad will have had only a watching brief in the opening two games, and only 20 of the 30 will have started either or both matches. "For sure there are players who are disappointed, I know that," admitted O'Sullivan. "But they're all aware of how the system was going to work, that we would pick teams based on getting results.

"Because of the way games were spread over four weekends there wasn't going to be a rotational aspect to them (the selections). So despite being disappointed they are aware of the logic to it.

"It's okay to be disappointed. I mean, I'd be disappointed if they weren't disappointed. I know that sounds silly, but a player who's in a national squad should be disappointed about not being on the field or in the 22. But they're professional guys and they deal with it properly."

Then again, any of the six might only be a tweaked hamstring from sudden elevation to the squad or starting XV. For example, a first start together for a "first-choice" tight five may yet be put on hold as O'Sullivan admitted that "there would be an element of doubt" about Reggie Corrigan for Sunday after he sustained bruising to his shoulder following a heavy fall in training.

If he is out, Marcus Horan, though himself troubled by a strained quadricep, is earmarked to start, with Best on the bench.

IRELAND REPLACEMENTS: 16 Shane Byrne, 17 Marcus Horan, 18 Donncha O'Callaghan, 19 Victor Costello, 20 Guy Easterby, 21 David Humphreys, 22 John Kelly.