Clean bill of health for Ireland

IRELAND look certain to play as selected in tomorrow’s World Cup warm-up clash with Scotland at Murrayfield, despite a couple of slight injuries sustained in training yesterday.

Out-half Paddy Wallace and prop Simon Best had participation in a squad training session cut short and were respectively replaced by Ronan O’Gara and John Hayes.

But, as assistant coach Niall O’Donovan suggested that Tommy Bowe would be fit to take his place on the wing, it was intimated that neither Wallace nor Best were in any serious danger of losing out.

The assistant coach remarked: “Paddy went over on an ankle but it’s nothing too serious. Simon had a bit of back pain, didn’t take any real part in the session so John filled in there, but both should be ok. Tommy came through all the tasks set for him and it’s looking good from his point of view.”

Ireland head to Murrayfield with a side best be described as “second string” bar the presence of captain Brian O’Driscoll and second row Paul O’Connell. But O’Donovan noted: “It’s not always a cut and dried selection in a number of positions these days,” he said.

“Scotland might be putting out what’s perceived as their best side, but in a lot of positions within the Irish camp, there is very little difference between the players challenging for places.

“The guys lining out against Scotland feel they’re the first team this weekend, and they are the first team because they were selected as such. If we weren’t confident they could go out and do a job then we wouldn’t have selected them.

“These are guys who want to play in the World Cup and they want to get into the starting line up for the bigger matches. Some of these guys are bound to be involved in the shake up. There’s a lot of rugby to be played and opportunity for those who want to earn their places in the side.

“We’re locked and loaded in terms of what first team we want, but you can never tell what’s going to happen six weeks down the road.”

O’Donovan insisted that Irish rugby had progressed very quickly from the last World Cup.

“It was clearly much easier to pick a squad last time, but we have more options this time and that makes it a difficult task, particularly in certain positions. The gap between players has closed and the second ranked players can perform as well as the first choice guys in lots of positions.”

The Irish skills coach, Brian McLoughlin, agreed with O’Donovan’s assessment of progress within the Irish game.

“Our skills levels have improved dramatically over the last few years; we’ve said that the work being done in the provinces is fantastic. Allied to what we’re doing ourselves it has led to a major boost in progress. While the trip to Argentina wasn’t fruitful in terms of results, it was a major bonus in terms of how much work we were able to get through with the fringe players. They came bouncing back into the camp after the summer break and it was a further boost to have the top 15 guys there to show them the level that they’ve got to aspire to.”

While skills have improved, defence is deemed to be of paramount importance these days. Teams throughout the world at every level have worked hard to develop patterns designed to frustrate opponents. The man assigned frustration duty on behalf of Ireland is Graham Steadman, who believes that time spent together is crucial.

“One can’t organise defences in a short space of time; it takes a lot of work, lots of time together and good organisation. You need to build up confidence within the squad and keep the lines of communication open. Once you get to a certain point then you get guys thinking on the same wavelength, and that’s a very positive side of Irish rugby because we get to spend a lot of time together.”

This weekend he is looking forward to watching the fruits of his labour in a couple of areas on the pitch – particularly that between the back three of Geordan Murphy, Tommy Bowe and Brian Carney, and the back row combination of Neil Best, Graham Heaslip and Stephen Ferris.

He stressed: “With new combinations like that, it’s imperative that communication is perfect. If we get the lines of communication as we would like, I’d be pretty confident that we can come away with a win from this game because I have no doubt about the capabilities of the players on an individual basis.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what these guys can produce because there is huge depth in this squad these days and there could be a few twists and turns in selection before the World Cup.”