Kidney left with more walking wounded

THE result was disappointing, but Declan Kidney’s had other more pressing concerns last night as the Irish party prepared for their departure on a three match tour of New Zealand and Australia today.

In the space of a disastrous 80 minutes, injury wise, Kidney has lost three of his first choice 33-man squad, with Jerry Flannery sustaining a calf muscle strain, Shane Horgan laid low with a mystery stomach ailment and Fergus McFadden ruled out with a suspected broken jaw.

Johne Murphy, who replaced Horgan on the wing for last night’s match, will travel with the party and Kidney hopes Horgan can follow. Damien Varley will come in for the unfortunate Flannery and Kidney is likely to wait until today to name a replacement for McFadden.

All in all, it wasn’t a happy evening for the coach although he put on a brave face by describing the Irish second half performance as top class.

He wasn’t far wrong, especially after he introduced more experienced players to the action in the second half and Ireland did much to overcome an 11-point deficit at the break, following a one-sided opening half.

After that, Ireland competed more vigorously, highlighted by a superb performance by man-of-the-match John Muldoon. Unfortunately, as he put his hand up for a place in Ireland’s Test side down under, others were falling by the wayside.

Kidney described it as a “tough game” and declared that he was proud of the Irish effort.

“I thought the senior guys showed their experience and the younger guys stuck with it. We have a young back row in terms of experience at international level; they went head-to-head with five of the better back rows in the world and they were still very much in the game, right up to the last minute.

“I thought we attacked well, especially when we got to grips with the pace of the game. I imagined the Barbarians were here to entertain, I got that wrong because they came to win and for that reason alone I was proud of the way the boys battled it out. Some days those things fall for you, other days they go against you.”

In praising Muldoon’s effort, Kidney also paid tribute to Alan Quinlan, who played a key role in that strong Barbarians back row.

“John had a fine game, but so did Quinny; we are blessed with fellows like that and we are blessed to have them in Irish rugby. I think John put his hand up and declared that we should keep an eye on him and that’s a big positive to take from this game.”

Irish captain Ronan O’Gara said Ireland might have been surprised initially by the more rugged than normal approach from the Barbarians.

“I was talking to a couple of them after the game and they were obviously hurt by losing to England so they targeted this match. I think they prepared more vigorously for this and it didn’t help that we gave them too much of a lead. We kept going at them but it’s hard to claw back that much of a difference against a team with so much quality throughout.

“There was a pretty hot pace; obviously there were quite a few errors on both sides but in terms of preparation for a tour it was good – it wasn’t really a warm-up match, it was bloody good game, very physical because they had a lot of southern hemisphere players.

“They were maybe a little bit more advanced in terms of prep, they have now been together for two weeks, we have been in camp for just a week. You never like losing and it’s disappointing, but I figure this was as good a preparatory match we could have got.”

And Barbarians coach Philippe Saint-Andre was inclined to agree. “I am delighted with the win but it was a different game from last week, in that we were left hanging in to secure the win, rather than going to chase it.

“You have to credit Ireland for taking the game to us in that second half, for chasing us and coming close. Happily, we had built up enough of an advantage to hold out,” he said.