Storm brews around Irish camp

Another blue Monday in Australia but there the comparisons with previous weeks ended. Whereas a week ago the players had been run into the ground with a gruelling `shuttle' test and 50 scrums, the response to the disappointing and deflating first Test performance was merely to let them get their feet back on the ground.

A curious travelling itinerary had the touring party kicking their heels for much of Sunday in their Brisbane base before embarking on a planned, late evening five hour and 20 minute journey across Australia to Perth on the east coast.

However, a refuelling stop in Melbourne, which wasn't exactly of Formula One standards, and then a journey across the island/country/continent (more of the latter now) into a south easterly storm added another two hours onto the trip. On arrival the body clocks said 3 a.m., the readjusted clocks said 1 a.m.

After a morning's rest, training was cancelled, much to the chagrin of some of the local media and populace, in deference to some light gym work after balmy weather had given way to overnight thunder and lightning on arrival.

Storm clouds of a more figurative nature had been gathering in the media meanwhile, with Peter Clohessy's so-called "tap dance" on Ben Tune's leg (which along with a shoulder complaint has ruled the Wallaby winger out of the second Test) and Ireland's collection of three yellow cards prompting much criticism of the tourists.

The ARU general manager, John O'Neill, yesterday intimated strongly that Clohessy would have been cited but for the archaic ruling for Test matches that states that players cannot be cited for incidents in which they were already penalised. "Having seen the incident at the match and again today on video, it would certainly have been worth a match commissioner taking a second look," O'Neill said.

Ironically, that ruling will be changed come September 1st, making citings permissible regardless of whether the offending player was penalised at the time. Nonetheless, Tune himself remained livid over the incident.

"I lost my cool a bit and probably shouldn't have thrown the punch because the penalty we got could have been reversed," Tune admitted. "It was a no-no, but sometimes you can't help such things. I was a fair way from the ball so I figured what was happening to me was pretty spiteful. I took offence to it, I guess, and reacted."

In response to all of this, Donal Lenihan calmly endeavoured to put things in perspective. "Of course we were disappointed with Peter's discipline in that period of the match, but if you look at it we had a period of five or six minutes when Peter was penalised twice. He was stupid with what he did with Tune that time. He shouldn't have done it and he deserved to be penalised, but I think the referee was beginning to get a bit worried that things were going to get out of hand.

"I mean, he flashed three yellow cards and Paddy Johns's I thought didn't warrant a yellow card to be perfectly honest. Kevin Maggs's thing was a 50-50 thing so from that point of view I think he (Watson) was just getting a little bit worried because he is South African and he had visions of what happened in Pretoria last year, which in my view was never going to happen."

Alas, the incident wasn't treated as an isolated case. Australian coach Rod McQueen had already expressed his displeasure with "off the ball incidents" to which a mystified Donal Lenihan said: "I'm not quite sure what he's getting at to be honest with you."

Meanwhile, sections of the Australian media have referred to "disruptive tactics" and "roughhouse play" from the Irish in general. One detects an element of self-fulfilling prophecies about all of this, and here, Lenihan was entitled to be a bit more defensive.

"This is something that has been associated with this team unfairly. In the last two or three years we had one problem in a game against South Africa in the second Test," Lenihan said. "We are trying to change our game to keep the ball in hand more and if anything we're probably less negative in terms of our tactics than any Irish team would have been in the last 10 years. But I think when people run out of things to say about Ireland they go back to the traditional passion, fire, negative - it's something that we've heard 100 times before. We'd tend to concentrate more on our performance."

Aside from Tune, the Wallabies also have doubts about lock Tom Bowman (hamstring) and prop Dan Crowley (damaged ribs). Jason Little will probably start in place of Tune, while Andrew Blades would be the ready-made replacement for Crowley, while prop Glenn Panoho has been added to the squad along with lock John Welborn and, ahead of schedule, the brilliant full back Matt Burke, who seems likely to return for the unlucky Chris Latham.

The Irish themselves have a number of injury concerns aside from the sidelined Conor O'Shea, most notably to Jeremy Davidson, whose swollen hand has meant it has been placed upside down to ensure the blood flows from the swelling which had been aggravated by the long flight.

Keith Wood has a slight calf strain also, all of which is liable to delay the announcement of the team until tomorrow. The management's plans have been further disrupted by an inability to obtain a definite time for evening practice at the Subiaco Oval. With hindsight, it was perhaps a mistake not to train at Ballymore at the appointed kick-off time of 8 p.m. a couple of days beforehand, rather than 6.00. Though it wasn't being cited as an excuse, apparently the match ball last Saturday was made particularly slippery by the night-time dew.

Indicative of the sporting terrain though, Subiaco Oval is an Aussie Rules stronghold and home to the West Coast Eagles and the Freemantle Dockers. Obtaining an agreed time, with rugby posts and rugby lines included, has so far been impossible - making tomorrow evening's session there provisional.

The Subiaco has been used for Tests once before, when housing a capacity (at the time) crowd of 33,000 for last year's Tri-Nations meeting with South Africa.