Kidney’s World Cup gamble

COACHES might not like it but the reality is, when they name squads, it is always the people that fail to make them that gain the lion’s share of the attention.

Declan Kidney ensured that yesterday when he chose to omit Tomás O’Leary, the go-to scrum-half of his three-year reign as Ireland coach, from the 30-man squad for next month’s World Cup.

O’Leary, blighted by a series of injuries since early October, when he broke his thumb during Munster’s Magners League clash with Leinster at the Aviva Stadium, struggled to recapture anywhere near the form that helped Ireland to the Grand Slam in 2009 during his rare periods of full fitness last season.

The thumb injury caused his absence from the autumn internationals and was followed by a bout of back spasms that made for a fitful early Six Nations campaign and an unfortunate eye injury denied him the chance to close out the season.

All of which, added to a desperately poor performance against France at the weekend, makes for a reasonable case for omission. Yet Kidney has gone out on a limb in choosing instead to take the inexperienced Conor Murray, ostensibly fourth in the scrum-half pecking order at Munster until the end of last season.

Murray has plenty of credentials, not least his assuredness when called up by both his province last season to start key games in Europe and the Magners League, and when introduced in this month’s warm-up game in Bordeaux against France.

The shock is more that Kidney has jettisoned a player whom, when fit, he has loyally deployed since assuming the Ireland head coach’s role. So Ireland will go into their Pool C campaign, which starts on September 11 against the United States, with Murray and Leinster duo Eoin Reddan and Isaac Boss as the three scrum-halves in a squad made up of 16 forwards and 14 backs.

Kidney yesterday denied Saturday’s game against France had been the deciding factor in O’Leary’s exclusion and instead, understandably, focused on the three players he had selected.

“I wouldn’t go into any one player, we said at the start that we would take a look at the players and look at where fellas are coming from,” Kidney said. “In Tomás’s case, he hasn’t had a whole lot of rugby over the last eight months and I think he is very unfortunate to lose out. I think everyone knows how much I think of him and Peter Stringer too, but then the highest compliment you can give to guys is to pick them so the other three must be doing all right.

“My job is to keep an eye on training too but there’s a lot of difference between training and matches, I understand that, but you have to give cognisance to that (training) as well too because it’s what you practise that you bring into the session. I can’t compliment the three lads more than what I’ve done in picking them.”

O’Leary was not the only surprise absentee from the squad but, again, Luke Fitzgerald had been given plenty of opportunity in the last three warm-up Tests this month to make amends for lacklustre campaign last season. And it seems as if a sparkling last five minutes against France on Saturday in Dublin was not enough to persuade Kidney that the Leinster back was worth a place on the plane.

In fact, Fitzgerald could be seen to have lost out on two spots, the first to his provincial team-mate Fergus McFadden and the second when a vacancy was created by the foot injury to Felix Jones, whom he replaced for the last 11 minutes against France.

Fitzgerald’s less than convincing turns at full-back last season meant Kidney went against type in eschewing the versatility of the 23-year-old for veteran Leicester captain and specialist 15 Geordan Murphy as cover for Rob Kearney.

Both Kearney and Murphy spent most of last season rehabiliting serious injuries yet Kidney hinted he had enough versatility amongst his backs to compensate for Fitzgerald’s absence.

“Luke can play in a number of different positions,” the Ireland coach said. “If you look at it, Marcus Horan and John Hayes are Grand Slam winners and Heineken Cup winners, Peter Stringer, Tomás O’Leary, Jenno (Shane Jennings), Kevin (McLaughlin), the list goes on. Luke is very unlucky not to be going on this trip, but within the squad we have a number of guys who can play a number of different positions as well.”

Horan and Hayes could be considered victims of number-crunching, Kidney’s 16-14 split rather than 17-3 meaning room for only four props, with Tom Court and Tony Buckley chosen as back-up for Cian Healy and Mike Ross. And Munster’s Donnacha Ryan won the battle for the versatile lock/back-row forward spot also contested by McLaughlin and Mike McCarthy.

The die, then, has been cast and the 30 players upon which Ireland’s World Cup fate rests will have the chance to assure their fans they are the right choices this weekend, when England come to the Aviva for the final pre-tournament warm-up. After three defeats in as many weekends, there could be no better send off to New Zealand than a first victory of the summer.