No place like home as Elsom admits to eyeing Oz
The 26-year old was speaking exclusively to the Irish Examiner yesterday in his role as fitness ambassador for the Musgrave Triathlon which will take place at Farran Woods in Cork on September 5.
This newspaper is media sponsor of the event.
Where Elsom will be playing rugby by then has still to be confirmed but a permanent return to Australia looks increasingly likely and he confirmed that a final decision on his future will be made by Sunday, at the latest.
When asked if the Wallabies, who are building towards the 2011 Rugby World Cup, were his priority, the answer was ‘yes’.
Elsom has indicated, though not flat-out stated, that he would like to play for both Leinster and the Wallabies over the next 12 months but the Australian Rugby Union has other ideas.
“I have said before that it is a little bit out of my hands, which sounds a bit funny because you can do whatever you want.
“It is though, in the fact that I am really keen to go back and play for Australia.
“I want to be able to get back to Australia,” he added, “so I can get back playing tests and that means I don’t have as much freedom to play wherever I want if I want to do that.”
One way or another, Elsom leaves Ireland for London today to link up with a Barbarians side that faces England at Twickenham this Saturday and then the Wallabies in Sydney on June 6.
Australia will also play two tests against Italy next month, and another against France, before kicking off their Tri-Nations campaign against the All Blacks in mid-August. They wrap up that tournament in mid-September.
Elsom’s first match for Leinster this season was against Munster on September 28 which would confirm that he could juggle both commitments but his comments yesterday were suggestive of a man who was not hanging around.
When asked, regardless of whether he was staying or going, whether he would ever contemplate returning to the northern hemisphere game in the future, Elsom already appeared to be in reflective mood.
“It has gone so well that I definitely think that I will miss it. If you could run the whole season again it would be great. I know that will never happen but I don’t know exactly how it will be when I get back. We will just have to wait and see.”
The New South Wales Waratahs, ACT Brumbies and Queensland Reds have all been mentioned as willing suitors in recent days but Elsom was unwilling to single out a preferred destination.
“It is important because you want to play in a good side when you get back and you want to be happy. If you are not happy it will cause trouble but I have got to sort my deal out with the ARU first,” he said.
Elsom was born in Queensland, home to the struggling Reds, and spent six years with the ‘Tahs before departing for Ireland, but none of the Australian sides reached the semi-final stages of the Super 14 this year.
“New South Wales and the Brumbies are the two strong sides and New South Wales won nine games which every other year, would get you into the semi-finals, if not even a home semi.
“So, in that way, they were a bit unfortunate but the tournament was wide open. There was a lack of consistency across the board that was a problem for a lot of teams. The Chiefs started terribly early on and they came home on a wet sail.”
Wherever he ends up, he has regularly stated his delight at having taken the plunge north of the equator. Claiming the Heineken Cup was the pinnacle of a rewarding stint. Even the weather wasn’t as bad as he expected.
Many of Leinster’s players pinpointed the quarter-final win away to Harlequins as the turning point in their season but Elsom believes it was actually the pool defeat away to Castres in December.
Michael Cheika and a handful of senior players that included captain Leo Cullen and Brian O’Driscoll decided that Leinster had to strip their game plan down and the set plays were the primary focus.
“Teams were getting used to what we were doing and it was putting a lot of pressure on us. The way the guys play it is high risk. If you look at the Super 14 you would see that they wouldn’t play those plays, flat lines and no-look passes all the time.
“When things aren’t going well they are hard to pull off. Then, we started to get back on top, they brought back in those plays. It was really the Munster game where everything clicked perfectly and it couldn’t have been a better time for it.”
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