Kidney takes a bold step

In appointing Jamie Heaslip as Ireland captain for the 2013 RBS 6 Nations yesterday, Declan Kidney made one of the bravest decisions of his tenure as national team head coach.

There were plenty of straightforward ones made yesterday as he confirmed the return of Leinster’s Greg Feek and Munster’s Anthony Foley to his coaching staff, on secondment from their provinces as scrum coach and acting defence coach respectively. Welcome, too, the return to the fold from injury of Rob Kearney, Sean O’Brien and Rory Best to join a youthful extended squad, including six uncapped players, still buoyant from a November victory over Argentina that prevented a slip into the third tier of world rugby.

Back, too, came Brian O’Driscoll, his Grand Slam-winning skipper of 2009, returning to the squad after another extended spell on the sidelines due to injury, and Kidney could have taken the easy route of simply restoring the captaincy to the Ireland’s greatest player.

Yet there would have been an element of sleepwalking into that decision and as the Corkman often reminds the media, being the boss means making the hard choices just as readily as the easy ones.

Re-appointing O’Driscoll, of course, makes perfect sense. The outside centre for the ages has given everything for his country and broken various bits of his body in the process. He is a warrior captain of Ireland, who leads by example and presents a respected face around the globe.

There is also plenty of logic to appointing Heaslip, it just needs greater explanation, not least to the man who would have to relinquish the role.

Kidney called that conversation with O’Driscoll as one of the toughest of his coaching career.

“Yes because it was not something Brian was ever going to give up, or felt he should give it up. Maybe some time in the future but he wouldn’t have felt that the time would be right now.

“Sometimes as a coach that’s what your job is, to make the calls you feel are at the right time for the player even though the player mightn’t agree.”

Kidney will have had to convince a disappointed O’Driscoll that he needed to be free of the burdens of captaincy, logistically as well as mentally, as he restores himself to full fitness following ankle surgery. He will also have to have made the case for preparing the Ireland squad and the country beyond for a time in the not too distant future when O’Driscoll is no longer a player.

By his own admission, at the 2015 World Cup pool draw last month, O’Driscoll said that tournament was probably “18 months too far” for him, which means he is not planning on extending his playing career past the summer of 2014.

Time, then, to ready Irish rugby for the post-O’Driscoll world and Kidney, so often criticised for his conservatism, has been decidedly proactive. In Heaslip he has selected not just the incumbent who led Ireland through the initially trying November Tests but the one member of his squad who has experience of leading O’Driscoll onto the field. Heaslip is, after all, Leinster’s captain when Leo Cullen does not play and in that sense, who better to ease the mercurial 13 back into Test rugby?

It was suggested yesterday that Heaslip might find O’Driscoll’s presence, as well as that of senior players such as Best, an added pressure on his captaincy, yet Kidney dismissed the possibility.

“I don’t think so, because of the generosity of the lads involved. I see it as just a bonus having them back in the squad... having Rory and Brian back now will add in to what we had in November.

“Once they get ready for matches they throw everything into the team and their generosity for it, they’ll be the same in and around the team dressing room as they’ve always been. It will be a strength to Jamie more than anything else.”

Another concern could be possible resentment from O’Driscoll towards his successor. Kidney hit that one out of the park too.

“He accepted the decision,” the Ireland coach said of O’Driscoll. “He will be disappointed but he is man enough to say, ‘Well, that’s the decision’, and he understands.

“He has been captain, he has been around. He has seen the way these decisions are made and he has seen how fellas have reacted and how fellas need to react. That is the way he will react.

“If he wasn’t disappointed… None of us are here forever, so if you’re not disappointed when something is taken from you, then you’re not human. It’s a word that describes how you feel, it’s not a word that describes how you act.

“Isn’t it way better to have him in the dressing room and have him there and have that experience to lean on when you are there, as much as wait for it to be gone? There is nothing to say Brian won’t be back as captain in the future. Jamie is captain for the Six Nations and then we’ll assess how things are after that.”

Leinster head coach Joe Schmidt also backed O’Driscoll to react in the right way.

“I think he’s just focused. It might be an ideal window for him to really focus on his game and get back to full fitness,” Schmidt said yesterday.