Old guard and usual suspects go on tour

IRELAND SQUAD:AS EXPECTED, the Irish 33-man squad for the forthcoming three-match tour to New Zealand and Australia falls along fairly conservative lines. All the usual suspects have been rounded up for tilts at the All Blacks, Maoris and Wallabies, including all of the older guard who toured with the Lions to South Africa.

Despite clear signs of wear and tear amongst many of those who have backboned the rejuvenation in Irish rugby over the last decade, especially in Munster, including John Hayes (36) and David Wallace, who will be 34 in the week of the opening Test against the All Blacks, not to mention the other five thirtysomethings who played in South Africa last summer.

Declan Kidney explained that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that Hayes, for example, would be better served not playing rugby for four months, or that it would stretch out his career.

“After all, we are going to the countries that are ranked number one and three in the world,” added Kidney, “and I think we can be a good side, but it’s not like we’re so indebted with resources that we can just leave a whole team behind us because at what point do you start? At any stage there’s going to be guys unavailable, and if you start making other guys unavailable then you can end up travelling without 15.”

Indeed, the expectation must be that Paul O’Connell will yet be ruled out, given there is only a 20 per cent chance of him boarding the plane the day after Ireland play the Barbarians on Friday, July 4th, in Thomond Park.

The Irish management are already resigned to being without Leo Cullen, whose shoulder problem is unlikely to withstand the ravages of this tour even if he does make a comeback for Leinster in the Magners League final, as well as fellow locks Donncha Ryan and Devin Toner.

This could leave them, potentially, with only three fit locks, Donncha O’Callaghan, Mick O’Driscoll and Ulster’s Dan Tuohy (one of only three uncapped players in the squad along with Chris Henry and Fergus McFadden) so the expectation must be that either Ulster’s Ryan Caldwell or the his Leinster-bound team-mate Ed O’Donoghue will yet be called up.

Ireland are also without longer-term casualties Stephen Ferris, Denis Leamy and Luke Fitzgerald, while there must also be a cloud over Keith Earls and Jerry Flannery given their ongoing groin and calf problems.

Although Tom Court and Tony Buckley have been brought, a lack of game-time counted against Mike Ross (as it did even more so for Seán O’Brien). One accepts that Ross has started just eight games for Leinster this season and that the last of these was four weeks ago. But he has appeared off the bench 13 times and if not bring him on this tour and pitch him into the fray, then when?

Furthermore, the argument for not bringing Alan Quinlan – on the basis that if he is still playing as well as he has done this season come World Cup time then great, and if he isn’t then this would have been a wasted opportunity to take the likes of Kevin McLaughlin, John Muldoon and Henry – also sounded like a good argument for taking Ross instead of Hayes.

Against all of that, Kidney and defensive coach Les Kiss did put forward two more good arguments for bringing all the frontliners who were available.

Firstly, as Kiss explained, this will be their first opportunity to properly experience the changed emphasis on the tackle law in the southern hemisphere.

“I think that’s important for us, to see how we adapt to that,” he said, and also in the conditions that will pertain in the World Cup in New Zealand.

Secondly, as both stressed, the desire will be to give all of the squad as much game-time as possible. On a similar tour at a similar juncture in a World Cup cycle, the two Tests in New Zealand and one in Australia four years ago, Eddie O’Sullivan brought a squad of 30 players, but started only 16 in the three matches, eight had no game-time whatsoever and a ninth, Jeremy Staunton, played for one minute – on the wing.

Kidney, as a somewhat marginalised assistant coach on that tour, would appreciate this narrow use of resources more than most.

The squad contains a dozen Munster players, 11 from Leinster, a half dozen from Ulster, two Connacht men, John Muldoon and Seán Cronin, and two from abroad, Tommy Bowe and Geordan Murphy.

The game against the Barbarians will be the first of a putative 18 games between now and the 2011 World Cup, including 15 Test matches. After New Zealand, the New Zealand Maoris (not a fully fledged Test match, but as it’s the second leg of three-match centenary celebrations, it will certainly feel like one) and Australia this summer, the Aviva Stadium will host a gentle autumnal programme featuring the shrinking violets of South Africa, Samoa, New Zealand and Argentina.

There follows the Six Nations and a four-match World Cup warm-up programme has been agreed for September 2011, with Ireland set to face Scotland away, France away and at home, and finally England at the Aviva Stadium. They are also exploring the possibility of playing Connacht, or possibly a Scottish district, prior to those four games at the end of August 2011.

If nothing else, Ireland ought not to lack for matches between now and RWC 2011.

Ireland Squad

Rory Best (Ulster)

Tommy Bowe (Ospreys)

Tony Buckley (Munster)

Tom Court (Ulster)

Seán Cronin (Connacht)

Gordon D'Arcy (Leinster)

Keith Earls (Munster)

Jerry Flannery (Munster)

John Hayes (Munster)

Cian Healy (Leinster)

Jamie Heaslip (Leinster)

Chris Henry (Ulster)

Marcus Horan (Munster)

Shane Horgan (Leinster)

Shane Jennings (Leinster)

Robert Kearney (Leinster)

Fergus McFadden (Leinster)

Kevin McLaughlin (Leinster)

John Muldoon (Connacht)

Geordan Murphy (Leicester)

Donncha O'Callaghan(Munster)

Paul O'Connell (Munster)

Mick O'Driscoll (Munster)

Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster)

Ronan O'Gara (Munster)

Tomás O'Leary (Munster)

Eoin Reddan (Leinster)

Jonathan Sexton (Leinster)

Peter Stringer (Munster)

Andrew Trimble (Ulster)

Dan Tuohy (Ulster)

David Wallace (Munster)

Paddy Wallace (Ulster)