Pointing to the future

If tomorrow evening’s game with Fiji were a Test match, with world ranking points up for grabs, it is unlikely Declan Kidney would have been so tempted to experiment.

Pointing to the future

Three uncapped players, six more with less than 10 caps apiece and an average age of just under 25.5 points to a team assembled out of necessity given the injuries currently blighting Ireland’s senior squad members and this fixture’s position between two heavyweight Test matches seven days either side.

A gruelling, physical battle with South Africa last Saturday evening and the upcoming showdown with the abrasive Argentinians a week hence means those involved in the former had to be rested this weekend. The non-cap status of the Fiji clash allows Kidney some degree of latitude in sending out an inexperienced XV, albeit with the insurance of some rock-solid, tried and tested internationals lying in wait on the replacements bench should it get tough.

Yet an encouraging performance against a near full-strength Fijian side could well signify the starting point of a new era for the national team and, if all goes to plan at Thomond Park, this may be the match Kidney looks back on as the turning point in his own fortunes.

“With the size of the challenge that’s ahead of us, it’s a whole new group we have,” Kidney explained yesterday at the team’s Limerick city hotel.

“It’s great for us in camp, great for me, because it is infectious but what you’re looking for is a whole new broom to come through. And if they can come through in any shape or form against a full Fiji side, then that will be a massive bonus for us.

“When the question was asked about the [low] number of caps [in Saturday’s team], when you pick them and you’re working with them day in and day out, you don’t do that. It’s just when you come to press conferences and you see it written out in front of you.

“I’m more used to reading this [team sheet and caps] out and it’ is double figures or treble figures. Now we’re down to single figures and asterisks.

“So it’s a totally different time. But that’s brilliant. All that I’d ever ask of players is to go out and be... you get judged on results, I know that, and you’re judged on performance, but when players go out and they give you everything that they have, for me as a coach that’s the be all and end all.”

Those asterisks Kidney mentioned represent the uncapped players on his team sheet, a trio of Ulster backs no older than 21 — wing Craig Gilroy, fly-half Paddy Jackson and inside centre Luke Marshall, who will partner fellow Ulster man Darren Cave in midfield against some serious firepower from their Fijian counterparts.

Dave Kilcoyne, Munster’s 23-year-old loosehead capped last Saturday as a short-term replacement for Cian Healy, joins Leinster hooker Sean Cronin and tighthead Mike Ross for an equally challenging heavyweight clash in the front row while Ulster’s Iain Henderson, who leapt from an Irish U20 Junior World Championship flanker last summer to a Test-match flanker last weekend against South Africa, will join forces with John Muldoon and Heaslip in the breakdown scrap.

What they lack in experience, Kidney is hoping they will make up for in effort and potential. This is as demanding an audition as they could ask for in a non-Test situation and the head coach believes if their enthusiasm and commitment in training these past two and half weeks is any guide, then Ireland will be in safe hands for this weekend and beyond.

“I must say from day one, they’ve been a joy to work with,” Kidney said. “I’ve told them that they have prepared as diligently as any group I’ve worked with before and you can’t help but be infected by that enthusiasm. As a coach, the one thing I’ve always said you can’t coach is attitude and they have showed that in bucketfuls.

“Experience-wise, we’re at a different experience level to what we were before but the enthusiasm is just brilliant.”

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