Italian job for Murphy and Leamy

IRELAND coach Eddie O’Sullivan has frequently stated that the toughest part of his job is telling players they have been dropped.

Given that he had a full-strength squad from which to pick his side to meet Italy on Sunday, the certainty was that there would be at least one or even two crestfallen players in Dublin yesterday.

And when the fateful moment came, it was O’Sullivan’s duty to tell both 53 times capped Girvan Dempsey and Johnny O’Connor, who made two appearances in the autumn and finished on the winning side against both South Africa and Argentina, they were the unlucky ones.