Rugby: O’Meara must come in from the cold

PETER STRINGER’S reign as Ireland’s number one scrum-half is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, such is the scarcity of alternatives.

Guy Easterby and Neil Doak were brought to the World Cup without getting a sniff of a starting place.

Only when the result was beyond doubt was Easterby given a few minutes.

Coach Eddie O'Sullivan will be announcing his squad for warm weather training in Lanzarote in the next day or two, I will be amazed if Easterby and Doak remain in the fold and Leinster's Brian O'Meara remains out in the cold.

O'Meara, 27, earned the first of his ten Irish caps as a replacement against England in 1997 but couldn't pin down a regular spot.

However, I have long wondered how Easterby and Doak were considered superior to the Cork Constitution clubman who has performed so consistently for Leinster over the past three years.

The primary duty of a scrum-half is to get the ball quickly and accurately and the Leinster number nine does that far more impressively than either Easterby or Doak.

He reads the game superbly, his tactical kicking is first-class and even his goal-kicking is acceptable.

"Of course my goal is to get back in the Irish side and so I wouldn't mind if Felipe Contepomi was here to take the kicks," he said after Leinster's Heineken Cup win over Biarritz at the weekend.

"I could then concentrate on my own game. The scrum-half has so many decisions to make around the field, so taking the kicks is an extra pressure, and sometimes it would be great if you didn't have to take them.

"To be honest, the easy option for me would be not to take the kicks. I was talking to Ronan O'Gara and he said one of the reasons I wasn't in the Irish squad was that I was probably taking on too much responsibility with Leinster. But then I haven't seen too many people putting their hands up to take the kicks.

"Take out the Perpignan game and I think my performances for Leinster over the last three years, especially in Europe, warranted my inclusion in the World Cup. The thing about missing kicks is that it can affect the rest of your game.

"There was so much stress involved in the Perpignan game. Basically, the quarter- and semi-finals were meant to be among the most enjoyable periods of our careers but they turned out to be the worst and it was an almost horrible atmosphere."

After the trauma of last year's semi-final defeat, when he shipped more than his share of unfair criticism after missing a number of kicks, Biarritz was a big game for O'Meara.

"It wasn't just me," he points out. "It went poorly for the other players and officials as well. We let ourselves down.

"But we have moved on week by week and tried to put it behind us. Of course we were very down after the Perpignan game with people telling us all the time how we threw it away and that kind of stuff. But what can we do about it? It's all in the past, and the new coach has been a breath of fresh air."

The "new coach" is, of course, Garry Ella whose approach sits very nicely with O'Meara especially when contrasted with the flamboyant attitude of his predecessor Matt Williams and you sense a more relaxed frame of mind in the Leinster camp.

One of Ella's first tasks was to convince O'Meara he should continue as the team's place kicker.

"There's a lot more relaxed attitude in the camp, it's a lot more enjoyable, there isn't as much pressure on us as before, and I think the arrival of Gary has much to do with that," says O'Meara, who knocked over five out of six in a strong, swirling wind against Biarritz, and had an 82% success rate (30 out of 37) prior to Saturday.

"I feel I can now move on and put that semi-final out of my mind. Goal kicking is difficult for a scrum-half these days in that he has to run to every single breakdown, whether it's in defence or attack.

"In defence, you have to stand behind the forwards and marshal them so there's a lot of running and it's very tiring. When taking those kicks, you actually get no break. When the others are taking a breather, the pressure is still on me.

"It's a great pleasure when the kicks go over so, yes, I do enjoy it. By and large, 90% of the time I've done very well. Obviously, the other 10% was highlighted last year but next time it could go badly so you've just got to take every game as it comes."