Jared Payne on standby as full-back Rob Kearney in Ireland fitness race
Head coach Joe Schmidt, seeking a first win of the championship after a draw and two defeats left his outgoing back-to-back champions in fifth place with just one point from six, could be without Kearney after he sat out training yesterday with a hamstring problem.
If the 29-year-old full back does not pass fit when he reports for training tomorrow morning at Carton House, he may well miss a Six Nations clash for the second time in four rounds, having failed to make the opening draw with Wales on February 7, also with a hamstring issue.
Scrum coach Greg Feek, whose area of expertise is neither medical nor backline-related, was unable to confirm whether this latest setback, believed to have been suffered towards the end of Monday’s training session, was a recurrence of the initial problem but he said Payne was one of the potential stand-ins at No. 15.
“It’s kind of like having kids, you always worry about them, backs,” Feek said. “You always worry about your backs, you know what I mean? That never stops. But I don’t want to throw out random comments about Rob himself. Hopefully we’ll find out exactly what’s going on, on Thursday with him.
“You’ve always got to have cover, and there’s guys filling in. You’ve always got to be prepared for all the different scenarios that rugby can create so if it means that Jared will have to cover there or Robbie (Henshaw) or whoever, then that’s the case.”
Payne, whose 12 Test caps have all come at outside-centre, was forced to sit out Ireland’s 21-10 defeat by England at Twickenham in round three with a hamstring issue of his own. He returned to training this week and yesterday did not rule out a reprise of his more customary role with Ulster in the Ireland backfield.
“I’ve always played wherever,” Payne said. “I’d played a lot of 13 in New Zealand and there were a few injuries at Ulster when I arrived so I was happy to slot in at full-back.
“But playing well for Ulster is different from turning it on for a Test match.”
Switching Payne to full-back would allow Schmidt to continue with the fledgling midfield of Payne’s Ulster team-mate Stuart McCloskey at inside-centre and Henshaw at 13 following an encouraging first date at Twickenham. Even Payne thinks that centre pairing has a future.
“Yeah, definitely, Joe would be silly not to look at (McCloskey-Henshaw) again. They were pretty impressive in that environment, so I’m sure there’ll be another chance to see them at some stage.”
Also set for a fitness assessment tomorrow will be scrum-half Eoin Reddan, vying with Kieran Marmion to be Conor Murray’s back-up this weekend but forced out of yesterday’s training with a calf problem. No such issues for Tommy O’Donnell, though, as the Munster flanker trained fully having sat out Monday’s session to recover from the shoulder stinger he suffered against the Dragons at Thomond Park on Saturday night.
Whoever starts for Ireland, there will definitely one new face on parade at Aviva Stadium, match referee Angus Gardner of Australia. Saturday’s game will be the 31-year-old’s first Six Nations appointment and his first Tier One Test match.
Having felt Ireland have been on the wrong end of some illegal yet unpunished scrummaging against Wales and France this season, Feek said he had noted with frustration the way the set-piece was being policed but said of Gardner: “I suppose all we want is consistency from him all throughout the game. If he has a philosophy and sticks to it, then we can adapt, we can’t ask too much more than that what he’s told the teams to do is clear to us, to both teams, and that he’s fair to both teams on that.
“To be fair to England, when we played them it was a really good contest (refereed by Romain Poite) and I know a couple of players were talking to each other off both teams and enjoyed the fact that it was a good contest.
“My referee report was pretty good in terms of just the communication and the decision-making and those sort of things were really good.”
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