Kidney left with plenty to ponder

DECLAN KIDNEY is again faced with the one dilemma he admits makes his job as Munster coach more than a little difficult.

He has more or less a full deck from which to choose his starting XV and reserve bench for Sunday’s (3pm Irish team) all important Heineken Cup tie against Clermont Auvergne at the Parc des Sports Marchel-Michelin.

With Paul O’Connell, Alan Quinlan and Tomas O’Leary all back in action after long term injuries and Doug Howlett also challenging for a place, Kidney faces a massive task in putting out the kind of side best suited to keeping alive their hopes of remaining leaders of Pool 5 going into the following Saturday’s visit of Wasps to Thomond Park.

The coach will give an indication of his line of thinking when announcing an extended squad tomorrow in Limerick. Should O’Connell have demonstrated by then he has fully recovered from the back injury that has sidelined him since the end of the World Cup, he is sure to be included in the squad. However, going a step further and reinstating him to a starting place ahead of Mick O’Driscoll would be a huge step that Kidney is unlikely to take at this point in time.

And even if he were to start the talisman second-row on the bench, that in turn could mean the total exclusion of Donncha Ryan, who has performed outstandingly well both in Europe and in the Magners League.

Quinlan is all out to make the Ireland squad that Eddie O’Sullivan is set to announce on Monday next and feels he will need some game time to have a realistic chance of inclusion. Here again, however, Kidney is faced with a quandary. Recall Quinlan at number six, revert Denis Leamy to number eight and there’s no place for Anthony Foley, who was nothing short of superb in the two Heineken Cup games against Llanelli Scarlets. Not alone that, but Leamy looked a new man in the number six jersey as compared with what he had produced at eight in the World Cup.

It can be taken for granted that O’Leary will resume as standby scrum-half and utility back in place of Gerry Hurley but that still leaves a decision to be made about where best to accommodate Howlett. While it seems a relatively straightforward call to play him at number 11 in place of the injured Ian Dowling, Howlett is probably more at home on the right wing and that could mean switching Brian Carney to the other side of the three-quarter line. Moreover, there is no place for Howlett at full-back in view of the ongoing outstanding form consistently displayed by Shaun Payne.

Kidney, of course, wasn’t helped by the postponement of Friday night’s Magners League game against Ulster. Even the intensive training sessions that have taken place since — another’s planned for tomorrow — cannot make up for the loss of such a game, all the more so because Clermont enjoyed a clear cut victory over Auch at the weekend. This has left their New Zealand coach Vern Cotter in the ideal situation to prepare for the visit of Munster, a game it seems that the whole of the Auvergne district is eagerly looking forward to with the certainty of a capacity 15,000 crowd.

Furthermore Clermont are in the happy situation of being able to replace South Africa’s injured World Cup captain John Smit with the outstanding Argentine hooker, Mario Ledesma.

Munster’s ability to beat Clermont Auvergne may decide if Ireland has a representative in the knock-out stages.

Ulster, who meet Bourgoin at Ravenhill on Friday, are already out while Leinster will have to beat Toulouse at the RDS on Saturday to have any chance of staying in the hunt. At least, it’s good to see that their supporters are standing by Brian O’Driscoll’s men with 14,000 tickets sold before the weekend and the remaining 3,000 sure to go over the next day or two.