Kidney shows he has steel to make tough decisions
Instead, he preferred Tomas O’Leary and Denis Hurley, Munster won, the two new boys starred and Kidney’s reputation as a man of steel and a good judge of a given situation soared ever higher. Stringer and O’Gara had been pupils of Kidney’s from their earliest days at PBC and he had coached them on the rugby field to such effect that both became indispensable members of a long succession of Munster and Ireland teams.
Neither would have been dropped by Kidney unless he believed he had the soundest reasons for doing so. And now the coach has to sweat it out until Saturday afternoon to see if he has got it right this time as he did on that other notable occasion two and a half years ago.
The preference for Jonny Sexton over O’Gara was practically the sole topic of conversation at yesterday’s team announcement in Killiney. One good reason was that otherwise the starting XV was very much on anticipated lines, with Keith Earls winning his fifth cap on the left wing in place of the injured Luke Fitzgerald and Paddy Wallace chosen ahead of Gordon D’Arcy at number 12.
The replacement panel, however, threw up a number of interesting calls, not least the preference for Stringer over Eoin Reddan at scrum-half and Tony Buckley ahead of Tom Court as sub prop. It will serve as a huge boost to Stringer’s confidence as he has been largely forced to play second fiddle to O’Leary ever since that fateful selection by Kidney in 2006 while Buckley has been rewarded for a superb cameo appearance late in the Fijian game last week.
“In Peter’s case, I know Eoin (Reddan) is very unfortunate to be left out,” Kidney admitted. “We have a lot of talent at scrum-half and Isaac (Boss) hasn’t got a look-in with us and that’s why he’s getting a start in the A game on Friday night against Argentina. Every player brings his own skill sets and we just think for this one a good combination would be Tomas and Peter but I have no doubt that Eoin will be involved again as well.
“Also, I thought Tom (Court) went well last week and the subbing is always difficult in the front row. You’re looking for guys who have played both sides and you want to have seen them do that at provincial level in the last year or two. Tom and Tony can double up, Cian (Healy) and John (Hayes) are going well for us and John is getting better with more game time under his belt. It lay between Tony and Tom and for this one the balance lies with Tony. He did make an impact when he came on the last day and we’ve seen him do that for us before and at training.”
It seemed inconceivable that Denis Leamy could have been considered this week after shipping what looked a serious injury against Fiji but there is still hope he can make the bench against the world champions.
“Denis took a nasty bang and twist to his ankle but he’s a good player and you give him every chance,” said Kidney. “We have our contingencies in place but it’s Denis’s place until he’s not right.”
The vote will likely go to Sean O’Brien of Leinster or Neil Best of Northampton and formerly of Ulster but Kidney wouldn’t elaborate.
One of the lighter moments at the press conference occasioned by the dropping of O’Gara came when a South African journalist referred to suggestions in the Irish papers that perhaps the Springboks were a team in decline. It was aimed at Irish captain Brian O’Driscoll, who smiled broadly at such a thought.
“Maybe that’s just certain sections of the media winding the South Africans up a bit and they’re not doing us any favours in doing so,” he said. “The Springboks are world champions, they’ve beaten the Lions and won the Tri-Nations. True, the first team has lost a Test match on this tour. But they’ll want to put that right in the last game of what has been a great season for them. So if we get the upper hand at the weekend, we’ll have beaten a very strong South African team.”
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