Limerick fans prepare for Test feast

Rugby fans will witness the nation’s growing strength in depth tomorrow when Test-match rugby returns to Limerick.

Coach Eddie O’Sullivan includes only three players from the team that started against Wales a fortnight ago for Ireland’s latest World Cup warm-up match against Italy at Thomond Park.

Yet he is still able to field a vastly-experienced side that boasts no fewer than 399 caps between them for only the third Test match to be played in Limerick in more than a century.

Centre Brian O’Driscoll, who will win his 40th cap, is there to skipper the side in the absence of Keith Wood while fly-half David Humphreys and front rower Reggie Corrigan keep their places out of necessity because of injury to Ronan O’Gara and John Hayes.

Ireland, convincing winners over a weakened Wales, should be far too strong for the Azzurri but the result will be of peripheral significance to O’Sullivan as he continues to fine-tune his World Cup plans.

Although the Irish still have Scotland to come at Murrayfield next Saturday, tomorrow’s match represents the last-chance saloon for as many as 14 hopefuls to prove their case before the coach names his 30-strong World Cup squad on Sunday week.

Humphreys and O’Driscoll are already guaranteed to be on the plane to Australia but opportunity knocks for a host of other candidates.

Wing spots and back-row places look to be still up for grabs and eight months after his last Test appearance, 2001 Lions hero Rob Henderson will be eager to tie down a centre berth.

Henderson, who will be one of only three Munster players on home soil, will be looking forward to taking on the Italians, having scored a hat-trick against them in Rome two years ago.

Locks Gary Longwell and Leo Cullen will be in harness tomorrow but they could well be battling it out for one second-row spot, while hooker Shane Byrne has a chance to show that he provides a useful alternative to Wood.

Winger Denis Hickie, who missed the summer tour to Australia, Samoa and Tonga due to injury, has his first international outing of the season and forwards Victor Costello and Marcus Horan also have a chance to prove their worth after being forced out of the Welsh game.

Girvan Dempsey, who has dropped behind Geordan Murphy in the full-back pecking order, is another man on a mission against what is guaranteed to be a highly-motivated Italian outfit following their 47-15 defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield last Saturday.

Coach John Kirwan includes only four of the starting line-up against the Scots, including captain Alessandro Troncon, and there is one new cap in Parma threequarter Diego Sacca.