Kidney eyes extra summer fixture

THE IRFU is planning a third fixture between the tests against New Zealand and Australia when Ireland head Down Under next summer.

Ireland will have the benefit of playing the All Blacks at the Yarrow Stadium in New Plymouth on New Zealand’s north island west coast – the same venue they open their 2010 World Cup campaign in – on June 12, but then have a 14-day wait before taking on Australia in the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on June 26.

The Irish coach Declan Kidney is concerned at the length of time between matches and has asked for another fixture to be slotted in. It is understood that the additional game could be against the New Zealand Maoris, which would provide Ireland with a stiff examination between tests.

Meanwhile, Kidney has pointed to the importance of the coming season in terms of Ireland’s development and will be warning the players against what he terms a possible fall-out from the recent Lions tour.

Kidney said: “The Lions is a fantastic experience; it’s like an Olympics, it’s something you want for your players to achieve because it’s such a high individual and collective honour.

“But history has also shown difficulties tend to arise for the country that supplies most of the players for the tour in the season afterwards and I remember England had that challenge four years ago.”

Not withstanding that expected challenge, Kidney believes in the Irish product and particularly in the personnel that makes up the product. “I would have a strong belief in Irish players being able to look anybody in the eye and say after a Lions tour that they did their best; that they did fine, and have an ability to get on with the job facing them now, that of doing the same for Ireland,” he said.

“You don’t do goal setting with an international side because my view is that every time you represent your country has to be special.

“Otherwise you’re not being true to the people that went before you. We would be very conscious that we cannot hand out caps for the sake of handing them out.

“When we went in May to the United States and Canada, the guys were the best players available to us and they held up the honour of the jersey which was very important. This time we face a different challenge; the more often we play Tri-Nations sides, the better we should be.

“We played one last season and got thumped; this season it will be four – Australia twice, start and finish, once at home, once away, New Zealand away and South Africa.

“We also have Fiji, ranked in the top 10, so it’s a pretty competitive season when you ally it to everything else in the Six Nations, not to mention an Irish A game against Tonga which is, in my view, a full blown international game.”