Kidney opts to mix and match
Leo Cullen will make his World Cup debut as captain of a team that brings Ronan O’Gara in at out-half and also shows one positional change for a game against a side yet to produce a victory on their tournament debut.
“There were a few fellas who weren’t in the mix for it because of bangs and knocks but there was still a necessity to freshen it up,” Kidney said. “It was a big Test match last Saturday, so bringing a few extra bodies into it from the American game into the Australian game brought an injection of freshness and enthusiasm into it and we managed to do that again on Tuesday and Wednesday with the lads who haven’t had a run yet bringing freshness and enthusiasm to it.
“It was always the plan to be inclusive of players rather than be exclusive. Hotel life is different and it’s the players’ World Cup and they’ll only buy into that if they get a chance to show themselves.”
Of the players retained, Rob Kearney at full-back, Cian Healy at loosehead prop and Sean O’Brien at number seven are bids to give those players valuable game time having missed the start of the World Cup here in New Zealand due to injury.
Tommy Bowe would have been another who needed game time but a slight calf strain picked up against Australia ruled him out of contention.
Keith Earls has been switched from wing to outside centre as captain Brian O’Driscoll is given a week off and Kearney will therefore have two new partners in the back three with Andrew Trimble and Fergus McFadden taking the wing berths. Earls partners Paddy Wallace in midfield while O’Gara gets the nod at fly-half after a difficult week in the wake of the confusion over his retirement that wasn’t. The Munster number 10 will pick up his 116th cap for Ireland partnering scrum-half Isaac Boss.
Healy will have hooker Sean Cronin next to him in the front row and Tony Buckley at tight-head prop while Donncha O’Callaghan continues in the second row, partnering Cullen. Stephen Ferris is rested so Donnacha Ryan gets his first start of the tournament in the back row, with O’Brien given another outing at openside flanker following his blockbusting performance against the Wallabies. Jamie Heaslip is retained at number eight.
O’Brien’s continuation at number seven rather than returning him to his preferred blindside of the back row may seem harsh on Shane Jennings, who as a non-playing squad member made a valuable contribution to the big-match preparations last week but Kidney wants to give the European Player of the Year more time in a role in which he is still relatively inexperienced given the injured David Wallace’s long-term occupation of the jersey prior to the World Cup.
“He just needs more time at seven. With Wally’s injury, Sean can cover all three in the back row, Shane can do a good job for us at seven too. Stephen Ferris came through the two games fine and it was prudent to give him a break but Sean needs the time at seven because that’s a position the more you play there, the better you get there.
“If he plays the way he did the last day, we’ll be happy with that.”
Kidney was also keen to move on from the euphoria of the 15-6 win over the Wallabies at Eden Park last weekend, stressing the point that it would mean nothing if Ireland did not go on and win their last two pool matches, placing particular emphasis on the Italy game in Dunedin on October 2.
“It makes everybody feel that much better about themselves,” he said of the Wallabies win, “but in actual fact it doesn’t make a bit of difference because if we don’t win the Italy one we don’t go through. The Australia match was the pool match everyone wanted to win. Italy is the vital one. That’s not being rude to Russia. The truth of it is that we could lose to Russia and still go through by beating Italy. If we beat Russia we still have to beat Italy to go through.
“It was nice to get that win but there’s enough experience in that group to know what it was. It was a win in one match that will be handy down the road if we can back it up. We need to back it up.”
And while the players have been expressing a desire to kick on from that win and set it as the benchmark for future performances, Kidney sounded a cautious reminder of the potential for disaster.
“If we can win 3-0 I’ll be happy. Whereas we were capable of beating Australia, we’re also capable of losing to Russia. We have enough experience of World Cups now to know there’ll be no easy match.
“Like everybody we’ll go on the Italy-Russia match the other night but if you look at the way Italy got their scores in the first 30 minutes, it knocked Russia back but once Russia got themselves into it... they scored three tries against Italy the other night, and we only scored two against them in February.
“Every match is a big challenge and I’ve seen from World Cups before that if you go into any matches in any way half-cocked, it’s going to be a miserable night. We’ve seen that happen to us before but if we approach that properly and we get ourselves right then we have the ability to get a result. So I wouldn’t be thinking about running away with it.”
R Kearney, F McFadden, K Earls, P Wallace, A Trimble, R O’Gara, I Boss, C Healy, S Cronin, T Buckley, D O’Callaghan, L Cullen, D Ryan, S O’Brien, J Heaslip.
R Best, M Ross, D Leamy, S Jennings, E Reddan, J Sexton, G Murphy.
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