Kidney digs deep as Ireland ring changes
There were 10 changes and one positional switch from the team that started the 23-21 defeat to South Africa last weekend, including a debut for 6ft 10ins Leinster lock Devin Toner, 24, and a recall for Munster 102-cap, 38-year-old tighthead prop John Hayes.
Rather than viewing those selections as a knee-jerk desire to wield the axe following the deeply disappointing performances that littered the Springboks game, this should be seen as Kidney, for the most part, rotating his personnel for the second of four matches on successive weekends. It is also the only sensible option.
New Zealand visit Dublin seven days after Samoa and that team to face the All Blacks will be an amalgam of the previous two, while this autumn’s Guinness Series is also an excellent dry run for next September and October’s World Cup campaign when four group games and, hopefully, a succession of knockout rounds will follow in quick order. This is not an Irish second string – how could a XV be called that with seven Lions on it? – but a team more than capable of achieving next Saturday’s task of delivering a much-needed victory after six straight defeats.
“Building a squad isn’t always as easy as it seems, and we talk about having a good squad and sometimes you have to back that up,” Kidney said yesterday.
“I believe we have a good squad and that’s why we’ve picked this team here, to show faith in them.
“I’ve tried to mix experience with youth and get the right type of team for the challenge that Samoa present and this is to try and show everybody that we have a good squad. And it’s my way of showing the squad that I believe in them.”
With Toner partnering Donncha O’Callaghan in the second row and, despite his inexperience, calling the lineouts, and incoming hooker Sean Cronin supplying the arrows, there is the opportunity to put right that woefully misfiring aspect of Ireland’s game from last weekend.
And with Hayes back in the front row, and Tom Court at loosehead after an impressive outing on the tightside as a second-half substitute against the Springboks, there will be less likelihood of further set-piece woe.
Jamie Heaslip will be joined in the back row by a new pair of flankers, Sean O’Brien replacing David Wallace on the openside and Denis Leamy in for Stephen Ferris on the blindside and those moves must be seen as purely rotational. The Munster half-back pairing of Peter Stringer and Ronan O’Gara have been given the task of continuing the excellent work they produced in the last 15 minutes against the Boks to make a game of the opening Test at the Aviva.
Captain Brian O’Driscoll is partnered in midfield by Ulster’s Paddy Wallace, with Luke Fitzgerald switching from the wing to full-back in the injury-enforced absence of Rob Kearney. Andrew Trimble comes into the back three as his replacement, across field from Tommy Bowe. Kidney acknowledged there was a danger in selecting a team with so many changes but looked to the bigger picture as well as emphasising his 18-month effort to develop a strong squad.
“There is (a danger), that would be a fair comment but we’re always talking about building a squad and that is not an easy thing to do,” Kidney said.
“The alternative is that the same 15 guys play but if you get injuries it is very difficult to call on other fellas.”
The head coach admitted his part in the blame for the last Saturday’s error-strewn display in the Dublin rain but said Ireland would stick to its objective of developing a running game.
“We were bitterly disappointed after last week, we know we can play better, but we have a plan and we don’t want to tighten up or seize up, we want to play an Irish way, we’re not trying to imitate anyone else, we’re just trying to play to our strengths, planned control. I hold my hand up, maybe I didn’t cover what happens if it buckets down like it did last week but we’ll learn from it and I believe we can become a better side for it.”
Kidney will not name his replacements until later in the week and said Kearney could yet pass fit for bench duty. Regardless, the Ireland coach sends out a team that can tame a potentially very big and strong visiting pack and midfield and quell the Samoan’s speed merchants out wide and that is testament to his beloved squad development.
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