‘One day makes a huge difference’

Please do not ask Declan Kidney what difference a day makes.

Aside from the terrific inconvenience caused to ticket-holding supporters by the late postponement of last Saturday night’s RBS 6 Nations game in Paris, the decision to reschedule the game back at the Stade de France on Sunday, March 4 rather than 24 hours earlier has had serious implications for the Ireland management’s planning and preparations for the rest of the campaign.

Facing the prospect of four games in successive weeks to complete the 2012 Six Nations campaign after this weekend was ruled out as an option, the IRFU sent its two Six Nations Council members, Peter Boyle and Pat Whelan, into the negotiating room. Saturday, March 3 was the preferred date of head coach Kidney.

Aside from increasing the chances of supporters getting in and out of Paris on day trips rather than fork out for a second weekend in the City of Lights within a month, the Saturday kick-off would have given the Irish a seven-day break between all four remaining matches.

The IRFU, though, was outvoted by the majority on the Council and a Sunday date means eight days break following the Italian match but just six for the team to face the Scots in Dublin after the French.

“It’s amazing, in these lads’ lives, a day makes a huge difference,” Kidney said yesterday during a truncated training camp at Carton House in Kildare.

“I’ve seen them be unfit to play a match and 24 hours later can make all the difference. Likewise mentally, you’re in one place but given enough time you can bring your head around to it.

“I’m sure loads of lessons will be learned out of this, there always are, it’s just somebody has to go through it.”

That somebody will be the tournament organisers led by Six Nations Ltd chief executive John Feehan. In the meantime, Kidney said he has tried to present a glass half-full view of the challenge ahead.

“You talk about four in-a-row. I have said to the players already that we had four matches last August then we had five at the World Cup after a break of a week and then at the end of the season we have the Barbarians [on May 29] and then three Tests against New Zealand [in June].”

The situation also enabled Kidney to advance the IRFU’s controversial Player Succession Strategy which advocates a restriction on foreign imports to one overseas player per position across the four provinces.

“It’s vital to have a good panel of at least 30 players. That’s why you have to have at least two Irish fellas in each position. It’ll be sod’s law… .

“If you look at our 13s going into the Wales match, we had Brian [O’Driscoll] injured, Darren Cave injured, Eoin Griffin injured and Keith Earls was otherwise occupied. So that was the four 13s.”

And the flip side of having an extra week off this weekend, is that players need game time having played once in four weeks.

“The structure of what we needed to do today changed totally with the game being postponed the other night and we just felt that the right balance was going to be to do one good day today. We knew that the decision was held out until Monday and if you didn’t know until Monday it was going to be difficult to assemble on Tuesday and as it turned out the decision was put off until Tuesday so we decided on today.

“A few of the lads, the Munster lads, on a flight leaving at 5.30 in the morning for Treviso. Connacht are at home, Leinster are at home and Ulster are in Cardiff, so they will leave on Friday and they need a bit of a run out as well then tomorrow.

“So had we kept them overnight we would have only done two pitch sessions anyway in that period but this way what we did was changed it around to do two in the one day.”