Irish centres' chances 'better than 50-50'
The doom and gloom of Monday has been replaced with a certain degree of confidence they will both make it and accordingly they were yesterday included in an unchanged back division for Edinburgh.
Indeed, the major talking point is that Denis Leamy has lost his place at open-side wing-forward, being dropped in favour of Jonny O'Connor.
Coach Eddie O'Sullivan argued that he had always considered "groundhog" O'Connor as his ideal type of player for the Scottish game and that the decision was founded on the "horses for courses" principle.
"We don't know the situation yet concerning Brian and Gordon," O'Sullivan explained.
"I'm not going to rule them out until I know better. They had scans yesterday. They have similar mild strains in the hamstring. There's nothing torn. The doctor says we will know later in the week so I'd be a foolish man to keep them out of the game at this stage. The doctor says the chances are that both will make it.
"It's only 48 hours since they got hurt, so you couldn't say at this stage. They were both active today, running in the pool and so on, although obviously they didn't train. Hamstring injuries can be serious but these two are relatively mild.
"I thought Gordon's might be very problematic because it looked like he was at full tilt but actually he was only taking off. He felt it go, so he took his foot off the gas, and that obviously prevented more damage.
"Brian was in a ruck at the end, he was tired and got hit from behind and slipped. He had it last year and realised what was happening so he bailed out and saved himself some grief as well."
The issue now rests with when O'Sullivan can make the call on his two centres. He insisted management take it day by day.
"I'd like to leave it as late as possible but I also want the team to know where they're at. Wednesday (today) will tell a story as to how the rehab is going.
"I may call it before leaving for Scotland which would be Thursday after training. Or if I thought another 24 hours gave me more information, I might wait.
"You always like to pick your team and train with them but we have to work around the possibility of both of them being available, one of them available or neither of them available.
"If they couldn't train until Friday, they're both still experienced enough to go in and play without worrying that you're going to be ill-prepared."
O'Sullivan insists he hasn't made his mind up on extra players they might bring to Scotland.
However, he quipped: "I could give you a shaggy dog story", which in Irish team-speak means Shane Horgan (whose nickname is Shaggy) would be moving from the right wing to the centre and also referred to Kevin Maggs and Girvan Dempsey as "players we can move around a bit".
He accepted, though, that Horgan and Maggs are both inside centres and that he hasn't anybody perfectly equipped for the 13 jersey.
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