Summer's famine gives way to feast

2004-2005 seasonThe 2004-2005 competitive season kicks off next week with the opening round of the Celtic League matches and though you'd have thought that a non-World Cup year would lighten the load, the reality is that it scarcely seems to make much difference. After the summer famine comes the winter feast.

By the time the Heineken European Cup final arrives on the second last weekend of May, the "domestic" season will be in its 38th week. Granted, the newly ordained 10-week pre-season means most of Ireland's front-line players won't join the fray until week five of the campaign, at the beginning of October.

Nonetheless, many of them will be hopeful of making the plane to New Zealand for next summer's seven-week, 10-match Lions tour, which comprises three tests. Meanwhile, the arrival on these shores of the big three from the southern hemisphere and Argentina, especially newly crowned Tri Nations champions South Africa, in Dublin for the first leg of their attempted grand slam, will be the highlight of the first half of the season.

But no less than in the Six Nations, inclusion in the end-of-season Lions tour will be the yardstick by which 100 or so players from the home unions will be judged and with Clive Woodward intent on bringing a squad of 44, why shouldn't there be a dozen or so Irish players on board? All the more so if Ireland remain the new force of European test rugby as they have been since the turn of the Millennium and especially if a less weary, stronger England don't revitalise themselves especially after their post-World Cup hangover (five defeats in their last eight tests) continued during the summer.

From the beginning of pre-season, therefore, to the third test in Eden Park on June 9th, the 2004-2005 campaign could theoretically, and effectively, comprise 51 weeks.

With a cap of, say, 30 games in the regular season, and a maximum of "just" eight internationals, in theory the front-line players could be available to their provinces for up to 22 games or so this season, but in reality it is is unlikely to work out that way; what with the extended pre-season and national training camps before and throughout the Six Nations.

Viewed in that light, the Celtic League will remain a poor relation of the Heineken Cup, for the absence of front-line players, European Cup qualification and a sponsor sends out a message that Ireland's commitment is less than wholehearted.

Ultimately then, it will be no surprise if stalwarts, professional or semi-pro, carry a greater load over the course of the 2004-5 season. with players such as Ben Gissing (who featured in every Leinster game last season) shouldering the burden.

Declan Kidney has brought an experimental 37-man squad for Leinster's pre-season friendly matches away to Coventry tonight (7.30 pm) and Worcester (Saturday, 2 pm).

Ex-Connacht centre Shane Moore is one of six Clontarf players named in the squad alongside John Duffy, David McAllister, David Hewitt, Aidan Kearney and Ben Gissing. There are also places for Blackrock College back-row forward Tom O'Donoghue and his clubmate Conor Kilroy as well as UCD's Simon Crawford, Kevin Croke, Dara Geraghty and Gareth Hayes.

Leo Cullen will captain the party while Ireland stars Victor Costello and Emmett Byrne should play some part in Saturday's game against Worcester.

LEINSTER (touring party): Forwards: Emmett Byrne, Peter Coyle, Gavin Hickie, David Blaney, Anthony O'Donnell (Arklow), Warren O'Dowd (Coolmine), Steve Barretto, Jason Moran (UCD), Leo Cullen (captain), Ben Gissing, Simon Crawford (UCD), Aidan Kearney (Clontarf), Aidan McCullen, Victor Costello, Ciaran Potts, Niall Ronan, Shane Jennings, Des Dillon, Tom O'Donoghue, Kevin Croke, John Duffy.

Backs: Brian O'Riordan, Dara Geraghty (UCD), Eoin Burke (Barnhall), David McAllister, David Hewitt (Clontarf), Christian Warner, Shane Moore (Clontarf), David Quinlan, Gary Brown, Ken Kennedy (Lansdowne), Fiachra Baynes (Lansdowne), Gareth Hayes (UCD), James Norton, John McWeeney, Conor Kilroy (Blackrock).