Humphreys stays for Italy game

DAVID HUMPHREYS has the chance to bask in the glory of his Murrayfield heroics a little longer after retaining his place at fly-half in Ireland’s side to play Italy in Rome on Saturday.

Ronan O’Gara, his chief rival for the number 10 shirt and first choice in the position so far this season, succumbed yet again to an ankle injury picked up in Munster’s Celtic League final win over Neath earlier this month and saved coach Eddie O’Sullivan and his selectors the unenviable task of choosing between the two.

Humphreys will start his 49th game for Ireland in Rome’s Stadio Flaminio but, whatever the reason, the Ulsterman was delighted to receive the news.

“I heard about an hour before training this morning,” Humphreys said yesterday.

“This is what we play rugby for, you ask any player what their aim is to play and it’s international rugby, Six Nations rugby. So to get another opportunity is everything I wanted.”

At the start of the week, as it looked as if O’Gara would be declared fit to be considered for the Italian clash, Humphreys had approached the impending selection decision in philosophical manner.

“The way I was dealing with it,” he said, “was that I had come in and tried to match the performances he (O’Gara) had produced and then leave it to the selectors.”

Given his showing against the Scots, when he scored 26 of Ireland’s 36 points at Murrayfield, it would have been harsh to have dropped Humphreys.

O’Sullivan had been bracing himself for making the choice but was taken by surprise when O’Gara suffered his latest setback:

“We presumed Ronan would be fine and, even on Sunday night, we were quite confident, but he ran on it at training yesterday and had a reaction last night as you often get.

"It got sore again and he saw the specialist at eight o’clock this morning who said that, while there was really nothing structurally wrong with the ankle, it just needed a little more rest.

“We decided not to take any risks with him. Injuries tend to improve quite a lot early on and then trail off but it’s just taking him longer. It’s one of those things and we’re a bit surprised as all the indications were he would be good to go.

“The smart thing to do, though, is just keep him back and let’s get this right.

“We still have three games left in the Six Nations after Saturday and we’ve got to try and keep our attrition rate down.”

With O’Gara out of contention, Harlequins’ Paul Burke keeps his place on the bench as fly-half cover but there are still more problems for Ireland as full-back Girvan Dempsey is still struggling with a groin strain he first developed on Heineken Cup duty with Leinster last month..

Geordan Murphy, who retains his place on the right wing having come on as a replacement for the injured Shane Horgan at Murrayfield last weekend, will move to full-back if Dempsey doesn’t make it, while John Kelly would come in at number 14. But the matter will not be resolved until Friday.

“Girvan finished fine against Scotland, no problem,” said O’Sullivan, “but on Sunday night it was sore and again on Monday. Because of that we’re taking the precaution of bringing John Kelly with us to Rome.

“We’ll give Girvan a couple of days and see how it goes, but we’ll leave the decision until Friday. We’ll know more when we get to Italy.”

The other change to the Ireland 22 is the inclusion of Rob Henderson on the replacements’ bench, filling the vacancy created by Murphy’s promotion.

O’Sullivan insisted that situation would remain even if Kelly was not given a starting spot.