Wallace in line for central role

ULSTER’s Paddy Wallace may get the nod to start at centre for Ireland when Declan Kidney today names his first Six Nations XV for the clash with France at Croke Park on Saturday.

With Gordon D’Arcy not a consideration due to lack of quality game time, Kidney is mulling over a midfield partner for captain Brian O’Driscoll and may opt to select the Ulster man, a natural inside centre, at 12.

That would release Luke Fitzgerald to the wing, on the assumption Leinster’s Rob Kearney is selected ahead of the more experienced Girvan Dempsey and Geordan Murphy at full back. With Tommy Bowe favoured for selection on the left wing, that could mean Munster starlet Keith Earls may have to wait for his Six Nations debut.

Kidney has been keeping his cards close to his chest since the squad linked up at the weekend, but there is a growing consensus that Wallace will start. The Ulster man is an excellent attacker and has improved his tackling and defence since Matt Williams took on the Ulster coaching role.

The Irish squad had a full contact session in Limerick yesterday and ahead of today’s team announcement, Kidney and his management team has a full squad to select from.

Kidney’s French counterpart, Marc Lievremont, will also have a full deck at his disposal after injury worries to prop Benoit Lecouls and second-row partners Lionel Nallet and Sebastien Chabal proved inconsequential.

All three reported to Marcoussis for the start of a week’s preparation ahead of Saturday’s match at Croke Park, which will be a relief to head coach Marc Lievremont.

Lecouls appeared to be Lievremont’s biggest concern, the Toulouse prop having received a neck injury during his side’s defeat to Biarritz on Saturday. But he said: “I feel hardly anything now. Everything should be okay.”

Les Bleus captain Nallet looks to have recovered from a rib complaint and Sale Sharks’ Chabal has shrugged off a shoulder problem suffered during his club’s win at Worcester Warriors.

Meanwhile Munster winger Ian Dowling and hooker Bernard Jackman (Leinster) have both been ruled out of the Ireland A squad due to injury. Both players were named in a match 22 that will take on the England Saxons in Donnybrook on Friday night (7.30pm).

Dowling suffered a hamstring tear and Jackman has aggravated an ankle injury. Ulster winger Mark McCrea has been called into the squad to replace Dowling and Jackman’s Leinster colleague John Fogarty will take up the vacant hookers berth.

Munster centre Barry Murphy has also been added to the A’s bench.

Meanwhile Springbok centre Jean de Villiers has turned down a lucrative contract offer from Munster, according to South African media. The South African player of the year for 2008 has reportedly said no to an offer of almost 4m rand per season (just over €300,00) from Munster, according to the Afrikaans newspaper Sondag.

De Villiers was one of 19 South African players to take up the offer of a one-year central contract with SARFU instead. An offer was made to a 20th – CJ van der Linde of Leinster — but the deadline for accepting the offer expired without van der Linde indicating whether he would return to South Africa from Ireland.