Kelly ready to play wherever needed

JOHN KELLY won’t know for sure until tonight what number jersey he’ll wear against Perpignan in Saturday’s Heineken Cup quarter-final at Lansdowne Road.

Because of the sad injury to Barry Murphy, coach Declan Kidney has a vacancy at number 13 and one of the options open to him is to move Kelly into the centre, a position he’s filled many times in the past with excellent results. Either way, you know that he will turn in his usual competent performance and that if the chance of a score comes his way, he will take it in the style of all the others - memorably the bonus-point try in the “miracle match” against Gloucester at Thomond Park in 2003.

“It doesn’t bother me, I’ll just be happy that I’m playing,” he says. “I enjoy 13, I enjoy playing on the wing, I’ve also played 12 a couple of times. The important thing to me is playing. You might be a winger for the first phase but after that you can turn into a wing-forward or a full-back or just about anything. Playing 13 is a different challenge to the wing and it’s nice to mix it up.”