Healy back as Irish eye Australia
The Leinster loose-head damaged an eye socket during Ireland’s final warm-up Test against England in Dublin on August 27 and was a late arrival in New Zealand after being left behind until his injuries were deemed safe enough to make the 36-hour journey from Dublin.
Yesterday he was declared available for selection and although stand-in Tom Court and his replacement Tony Buckley equipped themselves well against the Eagles in the 22-10 win, Healy looks certain to start against the Tri-Nations champions at Eden Park on Saturday morning.
“For what he did the past week he’s fine, so they’ll look closely at first practice to see how he copes with that, but all things being equal, he’s going well at the moment,” forwards coach Gert Smal said of Healy before turning to Court and Buckley. “They give us a little bit of a headache because in terms of looking at what is our best option on the bench but that’s what you want from players, you want them to give you headaches so that’s quite positive.”
Buckley remained the only injury doubt for Saturday after taking a bang on the shoulder after coming on in the second half last Sunday. The former Munster forward, who joined Sale Sharks during the summer, was due to undergo an MRI, the results of which were expected to be released later today.
Otherwise, Ireland team manager Paul McNaughton declared the rest of the squad including flanker Sean O’Brien and full-back Rob Kearney, both absent against America, fully fit.
There was little gloom or doom in the Ireland camp yesterday following their arrival in Auckland from New Plymouth, where Declan Kidney’s team had to work hard for their victory over Eddie O’Sullivan’s Eagles.
In fact, while McNaughton yesterday admitted Ireland’s backs were to the wall going into the Australia game, Smal struck an extremely positive tone.
“The players know exactly what they need to do and what they’ve got in the team, so it’s just a matter of cutting the mistakes and putting a performance together.
“It can turn very quickly. It’s just they’ve got to put those things together.”
Yet Ireland have only put a performance together once in the last year, when they defeated Grand Slam-chasing England in March. Otherwise, flashes of brilliance have been limited to isolated spells and Smal said the victory over England was serving as the benchmark for future performances.
“It’s the type of game that we want to put together and that we work towards all the time,” the South African said of Ireland’s 24-8 win over the English.
“We’re not satisfied with less than that. That’s the kind of standard that we want to maintain continually.”
He also admitted the recent stuttering performances, not least against the USA last weekend, had been frustrating because the Irish coaches knew what the players were capable of.
“I would lie if I said no but, again, it’s to see how you can activate the players in a certain way; keep their confidence going so that they could pull it out at the right time. Because if you’re too harsh on them all the time, then they’re also going to go into themselves a little bit and that’s what you don’t want, especially when it comes to World Cup.
“So you have to get the balance right, putting on enough pressure but also just keeping their confidence high all the time and letting them realise what they have, because they have something special in the team and you just need to bring it out.
“I think if you can cut down a little bit on the mistakes you can build momentum and it’s a different ball game.”
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