McLaughlin questions ‘conservative’ Irish squad

ULSTER coach Brian McLaughlin has branded Declan Kidney’s latest Irish squads as “conservative” and lamented the absence of a number of his players from both the senior and Wolfhound panels yesterday.

With Ulster top of a very difficult Heineken Cup group approaching the last round of fixtures and a number of their Irish players in impressive form, hopes were high that the Ravenhill contingent would be boosted as the Six Nations approaches. Ulster have had five named to the initial Six Nations squad — Rory Best, Tom Court, Stephen Ferris, Andrew Trimble and Paddy Wallace — while Chris Henry, Dan Tuohy and Nevin Spence have been pencilled in to the second string. Paddy McAllister will also link up with the seniors next week as one of six up-and-comers who it is hoped will benefit from being included in illustrious company for the initial week’s training in Limerick. Neither squad is set in stone but the absence of players like Paul Marshall, who has been superb at scrum-half, and the try-scoring threat that is Craig Gilroy will rankle more people in and around Belfast than just McLaughlin.

“If you look at the squads, they have been fairly conservative and certainly I’m a little bit disappointed Paul is not involved,” said the coach. “Dan Tuohy has been exceptional and I’m disappointed he has not been pushed up again to the senior squad. Chris Henry is there (with the Wolfhounds) and Paddy McAllister is in the senior squad as a guy coming in to gain from experience but certainly I feel that people like Craig Gilroy should have had an opportunity and I’m disappointed they haven’t been given that.”

Ireland open their Six Nations campaign against Wales in Dublin and Kidney will not finalise his squad for that fixture until after the Wolfhounds’ tie against England Saxons. That said, there will be no better shop window for any Irish-qualified player this weekend than at the Stade Marcel Michelin on Saturday where Ulster will need to avoid defeat to make sure of their place in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

As a test, it could hardly be greater. Clermont Auvergne’s unbeaten run on home ground stands at 38 games, it is over three years since they were bettered there in Europe (by Sale Sharks) and they have just put 82 points on the board in Italy against Aironi. Ulster travel in expectation rather than hope after their impressive taming of the Leicester Tigers in Ravenhill on Friday but they have yet to claim a win on French soil and acknowledge that they will have to perform even better to make history this weekend.

McLaughlin continued: “We are playing for our lives. If we go down there and lose, we are probably not going to make the quarters and, if we win, we just might sneak a home quarter-final. With all the permutations, the only one we are interested in is that we get a home quarter-final. We are under no illusions as to the enormity of our task but we feel with the performance we put in on Friday we are more than capable of putting in a performance and coming back with what we need.”