THERE WAS some serious tick tacking going on in Limerick yesterday between Ireland manager Paul McNaughton and coach Declan Kidney. By the time Kidney had explained for over a quarter of an hour he had four injured players, eight other players returning to their provinces for this weekend’s raft of Magners League matches and six Academy players coming in to make up the numbers there were quite a few screwed up, puzzled expressions around the team hotel.

McNaughton finally entered the fray and admitted that, yes, the lack of bodies this week before Ireland’s first Test match against South Africa on Saturday week was putting Kidney under pressure, causing management stress and was inconvenient.

You got the impression McNaughton was understating management frustrations and Ireland has a serious preparation problem before the first Test.

The team may have similar problems throughout the Six Nations Championship now there are more Magners League matches scheduled, with the introduction of two additional Italian teams elongating the provincial season.

For the rest of this week Kidney has 22 squad players to train with in Limerick.

“Declan hasn’t said it but it does put a lot of pressure on the coaches and it ties your hands a little bit,” said McNaughton. “Every coach wants to have his 30 best players in an international situation training with them for the weeks (together) so that they can run offensive, defensive lines with their peers.

“Because of the extra fixtures during the Six Nations and in November that’s no longer possible. It’s what we’ve had in the past, when we didn’t have clashes of fixtures.

“It is very frustrating having to manage this sort of situation. It’s going to be inconvenient for us. It’s going to be inconvenient for the provinces. It’s not a straight line process and as Declan says, we just have to manage it. It’s not a perfect scenario. A perfect scenario would be that we have our top 30 players training until we break up.”

The roll count is formidable. Not available to Kidney this week due to injury are: Tomás O’Leary, Paul O’Connell, Kevin McLaughlin and Jerry Flannery. The four injured players who did not take part in training yesterday were: Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy, Rory Best and Keith Earls.

D’Arcy, after resting a calf problem and Best following concussion, are expected to take some part later in the week. O’Driscoll and Earls are not.

There are also a further eight players released to their provinces to play in the weekend’s Magners League matches: John Hayes, Peter Stringer, Johne Murphy, Gavin Duffy, John Muldoon, Shane Horgan, Isaac Boss and Connacht loosehead prop Brett Wilkinson.

Kidney has had to draft in six Academy players simply to make up the numbers until next week. Kidney did not say explicitly but did suggest O’Driscoll and Earls won’t be fit for the opening game against the Springboks.

“We’ve both Brian and Keith injured for 13 (outside centre). If one of them was fit that would be an advantage. I’ll pick who I think will go best for South Africa and that’s all I’ll consider,” said Kidney adding. “We’ve 22 to train with for the rest of the week. What we’re doing is we’ve called in six Academy development guys, who are going to join us Wednesday night so we can try and have two good training sessions Thursday and Friday. Everyone is scrambling for players because of Magners League, so we’ve called in six young guys from all four provinces to supplement us for Thursday or Friday.”

Voila, the modern game of rugby and be sure Kidney and McNaughton will concern themselves with who comes through the weekend in one piece with their provinces. Kidney acknowledged “resources are going to be pushed” and his, unflappable, understated exterior never stirred once.

It is a unique situation but one about which the South African camp under coach Peter De Villiers won’t give a jot. De Villiers arrives under greater pressure than Kidney after a Tri-Nations flop and with a chorus in South Africa calling for his head.

The Springbok coach is looking for his own redemption to the backdrop of Ireland beating South Africa last season.

“It was a good win last year. We played well,” said Kidney. “You could see their potency in the two (Tri Nations) games against Australia, slow starts and then they pulled points back. They showed what they can do. Reading what you said in the newspapers, it was said on the Lions trip that there is nothing worse than a wounded Springbok.”

That may be so but Kidney would have liked to choreograph his team’s arrival in Aviva Stadium to face the world champions waltzing to a well-practised routine and with his entire cast of characters, not with understudies engaged in musical chairs.

“When you do the sums for an international weekend when there are Magners League matches. That’s 23 players each, which is 92 players and another 22 (left in the Ireland squad), that’s 114,” said Kidney. “You don’t fuss about it. You just get on with it.”