IRELAND MOVE on to Auckland and the pivotal Group C meeting with Australia next Saturday in Eden Park without having fully banished the memories of a losing August, already a point adrift of the Wallabies and with more issues concerning form, injury and selection than they would have assiduously prepared for.
Cian Healy, Sean O’Brien and Rob Kearney will all come back into the equation, with Healy and O’Brien sure to start if declared fit.
The full-back position is less clear-cut, as Murphy can give the backline more of a strike runner or support trailer from full-back, but a hunch suggests they will go with Kearney’s greater physicality.
A similar kind of consideration applies to left wing where Andrew Trimble might be considered a better bet than Keith Earls for the job of countering James O’Connor.
Judging by the manner in which the management whisked off the starting half-backs, both of those positions have become issues too.
Conor Murray probably didn’t do enough on the night to earn a start against Will Genia, but – whatever about countering the Australian – as Tommy Bowe’s second try shows, Eoin Reddan’s snappier service gives the backs a better chance of unlocking defences.
Having started three of Ireland’s previous seven Tests, Jonny Sexton needed a more confident outing and still hasn’t been able to replicate the uber confident number ten we see in Leinster blue. His defence and running threat remains, but O’Gara is breathing down his neck and is playing better at this World Cup, at the age of 34, than he did at the last.
In two years, Reddan and Sexton have only started four Tests, the last of them in Ireland’s 24-8 rout of England. Oddly, they have been able to reprise their Leinster partnership for a mere 14 minutes in the five Tests Ireland have played to date this season.
They may be finally reunited this week, though neither will have felt they’ve had ringing endorsements of late.
The form of others, such as Jamie Heaslip and Gordon D’Arcy (both of whom are due big games) is also a concern, as is the wellbeing of Brian O’Driscoll, who is probably playing through the pain barrier yet again.
