A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Fall guy: Squad wind up Tommy Bowe
HIS IRELAND team-mates are currently enjoying ridiculing Tommy Bowe at every opportunity. At a recent press conference secondrow Donncha O’Callaghan enquired: “You want me to slag off Tommy Bowe?”
Continuing into a description of what good guys the Welsh players are, O’Callaghan told how they took the 27-year-old Bowe under their wing during the 2009 British and Irish Lions Tour.
“No one else would have accepted an idiot like Tommy so fair play to the Welsh lads for taking him off our hands.”
Ireland prop Tom Court, who reads at least two books a week, later paused while expounding on his favourite literature to let slip that Bowe had not read a book since primary school.
“I’d love for us to separate ourselves and say our time in the jersey was a little bit different and a little bit special; that we pushed it on another level or two. That would be a great thing.”
Donncha O’Callaghan gets serious for a minute.
“Six weeks into camp and it’s a bit like Big Brother around here. Guys start to break and you start to hop the ball a bit more at guys who are cracking.
“Yeah, we’re enjoying each others company and that’s reflected in the way we are playing.”
O’Callaghan quickly reverts to type.
Surgery: Gatland cuts loose
WALES COACH Warren Gatland hasn't performed such drastic surgery on a team since that famous roll of the dice with Ireland back in 2000. Having been shafted 50-18 at Twickenham, just a few months after losing to Argentina in Lens, the young Gatland's head was on the chopping block. What did he do?
Well, he discarded Conor O'Shea, Justin Bishop, Kevin Maggs, David Humphreys, Tom Tierney, Paul Wallace, Bob Casey and Dion O'Cuinneagain while handing Shane Horgan, Peter Stringer, Ronan O'Gara, John Hayes and Simon Easterby their Test debuts.
He also provided Mick Galwey's international career with an Indian summer. Scotland were subsequently hammered 44-22.
Since this year's Six Nations, Gatland has dropped Stephen Jones, Lee Byrne, James Hook, Bradley Davies and Ryan Jones. Not many Irish punters have ever seen Rhys Priestland, George North or Toby Faletau in action but they are quality players. Their frontrow has also changed completely due to the return to fitness of Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones. Just saying.
A TELEVISION journalist told a member of the Wales management team their base at suburban Newtown shared a boundary fence with the local zoo and said monkeys had been known to escape and even to head to the rugby ground. The Welsh official smiled: "Well if they come down here over the next couple of days they'll get on very well with the gorillas in our frontrow."
Ton up: Muliaini back in favour
MILS MULIAINA is set to win his 100th Test cap in New Zealand's quarter-final with Argentina on Sunday. Head coach Graham Henry yesterday named a team showing six changes in personnel and one positional switch following the 79-15 win over Canada.
Ma'a Nonu and Corey Jane return to a back division which sees Sonny Bill Williams move to the wing and Piri Weepu take over at scrumhalf, with Colin Slade continuing at outhalf following the tournament-ending injury to Dan Carter.
In the forwards, captain Richie McCaw returns at flanker despite an ongoing foot injury, Keven Mealamu at hooker and Brad Thorn at lock.
Muliaina retained his place and Williams was selected on the wing in part due to injuries to Zac Guildford (hamstring), Israel Dagg (thigh haematoma) and Richard Kahui (hamstring).
NEW ZEALAND: M Muliaina; C Jane, C Smith, M Nonu, SB Williams, C Slade, P Weepu; T Woodcock, K Mealamu, O Franks, S Whitelock, B Thorn, J Kaino, R McCaw (capt), K Read. Replacements: A Hore, B Franks, A Williams, V Vito, J Cowan, A Cruden, I Toeava.
AUSTRALIA CAPTAIN James Horwill was very precise when asked at a press conference about South Africa's "miserable defence," unlike the person who posed the questions. The Australian pointed out in a puzzled tone: "I don't know if they've been miserable on defence. Until the weekend they've only had one try scored against them." It was then the reporter confessed he meant to say miserly defence.
Beer bet
"I was with my brother Stan yesterday and we have a jug of beer riding on the result: I think Wales will win, and he's backing Ireland. Wales are very interesting. They've been playing pretty good rugby and were unlucky against South Africa when they lost 17-16 in Wellington. They won the rest of their pool games and had a huge game against Samoa, which they came out of pretty well."
– New Zealand legend Colin "Pinetree" Meads sees more potential in Wales than Ireland.
He's hard: O'Brien 'facts' doing the rounds
PRESUMABLY, YOU have heard about the Seán O'Brien "facts" doing the rounds. This used to be the domain of Paul O'Connell.
"Seán O'Brien is so hard he could kill two stones with one bird."
"Seán O'Brien went to Burger King and ordered a Big Mac. And got one."
"Seán O'Brien is the last of the Mohicans."
You get the idea.
Ross O'Carroll-Kelly wasn't best pleased with Cian Healy being left in the shade and promptly endorsed his facts list:
"Cian Healy could move Clontorf to the southside. He just doesn't want to"
If Ireland win tomorrow this will run and run.
Twitter wasted no time embracing O'Brien on Wednesday morning. The "Tullow Tank", as Brian O'Driscoll calls him, went from zero to 1,001 followers in 10 minutes (11.08am to 11.18am).
By yesterday lunch-time he had tipped over the 10,000 mark thanks to a little introduction by O'Driscoll.
Here's the most captivating of his three tweets to date: "A nice treat for lunch today . . . Homemade burgers!! Off bowling now with fez, rob and drico. Doubt I'll have much hassle beating those lads."
Ross also laid out the red carpet: RossOCK @SeanOBrien1987 "Welcome. We've been expecting you."
No quiet, please
"IN terms of goal-kicking, it makes it a whole lot easier. If the whole stadium is quiet, then you know that there's 50 or 60,000 people just watching you. If you've ever had a drug test, and you've got one person standing there just looking at you when you go to the bathroom, well that's a pretty frightening experience. If there's 60,000 people watching you do the one action, it can freak you out. So if all these people are yelling, then you know they're doing something else, apart from looking at you."
– Quade Cooper prefers place-kicking in front of 60,000 Kiwis baying for his blood to urinating in front of one man. He'd hate Thomond Park so.
Birthday Sam: quiet party
IMPRESSIVE WALES captain Sam Warburton turned 23 on Wednesday but there were no riotous celebrations. The openside flanker, who has excelled in the tournament to date, does not drink, so he settled for blowing out the candles on a birthday cake provided by the team.
Warburton admitted the treat didn't compromise their physical conditioning ahead of the Ireland game. "The management got a cake, but the players had tiny slithers and the management had the biggest slices."
WALES OUTHALF Rhys Priestland has been practising his drop goals since a fluffed attempt in the dying minutes against South Africa saw his team his team lose 17-16 in their opening Pool D match. But he has found the efforts of his supposedly less-able team-mates rather off-putting.
"It's been a bit disheartening actually," said the 24-year-old after a press conference at the team hotel yesterday. "The other day as we were walking off the training pitch (prop) Adam Jones knocked one over from about 40 yards out. I told him he had to cut that out, as it wasn't helping."
