One of the curiosities about the AIB League, all the more so given its diminishing crowd base, was the traditional Christmas hiatus in a week most conducive to getting the turnstiles ticking. Thus, while it may be an unwanted intrusion into family life, not before time Division One will be open for business next Tuesday.
And, as events would have it, after Munster's unprecedented run of success and harmonisation this season, the supposed season of goodwill will see Cork Constitution-Garryowen and Shannon-Young Munster clashes.
The first mentioned is, of course, a repeat of last season's All-Ireland League final at Lansdowne Road which Cork Con won in extra-time. As if to highlight the missed crowd-pulling opportunities at previous Christmases, Cork Con's St Stephen's Day meeting with UCC provides them with their biggest crowd of the season barring a bumper end-of-season AIL biggie at home.
That annual fixture, under the guise of the Crowley Cup, will still go ahead next Sunday, though it will be trimmed down to either an under-20 league fixture or a seconds' game. Needless to say the Garryowen game two days later at Temple Hill will now be the one to attract the huge crowd. The pre-match corporate lunch, for example, was sold out months ago.
"It's a very attractive fixture," says the Con co-coach Packy Derham enthusiastically, before adding the rider: "unfortunately the preparation time is zero." While conceding that this is the same for Garryowen, Derham maintains: "I think Shannon and ourselves have been the most disrupted by it, whereas Garryowen have less players in the team and so haven't been so much.
"I think you can attribute much of our opening day performance against Buccs to rust and a lack of match preparation. For that reason it's not the ideal time to be playing Garryowen. I'd fancy Garryowen to be probably the best team in the league this season, and I'd have liked a bit more time for preparation. It's going to be a real tough, tough game, and there'll probably only be a kick of the ball in it. I'm just a bit worried about the injuries in our back line."
To whit, both Conor Mahony and Brian Walsh have been suffering from long-standing back problems, and Derham rates their chances of being fit for next Tuesday's game as "poor", on top of which the injury-plagued Anthony Horgan picked up a knee injury in departing prematurely from Munster's game against Colomiers last Saturday and is considered very doubtful. Derham is more optimistic about the prospects of Frankie Sheehan, Ian Murray, and Cian Mahony.
Against that, Garryowen may well be without Keith Wood as well as the influential Killian Keane. Wood is a bit battered from his season's output and aggravated a shoulder complaint against Colomiers. Keane, meanwhile, is definitely out and is doubtful about making a comeback from the broken bone in his hand before the AIL game against Terenure on January 22nd. While the Wood-Sheehan contest at hooker may thus be ruled out, several other interesting Munster match-ups add further intrigue to this fixture. There is the showdown at scrum-half between Ireland's World Cup number nines, Brian O'Meara and Tom Tierney, both supplanted by Peter Stringer with Munster of late, not to mention the Ronan O'Gara-Jeremy Staunton duel at out-half.
Even more so than Con, Shannon will spend much of this week merely assessing how their numerous Munster contingent react to the Colomiers' game, according to co-coach Pat Murray.
As if to underline Shannon's difficulties, Murray points out that in last Saturday's friendly against Lansdowne, which was a re-run of their league opener, "we only had one player from that game a fortnight before whereas Lansdowne had 12."
John Hayes is obviously Shannon's biggest concern, after he was only declared fit on the morning of the Colomiers match after intensive daily physio on his lower back injury, but of some consolation for Shannon is that centre Paul McMahon came though that Lansdowne game, his first in 10 months, as did outhalf Jim Galvin.
As fate would have it, elsewhere the other four Division One games will all be held in Dublin, where St Mary's, Clontarf, Terenure and DLSP host Buccaneers, Dungannon, Ballymena and Lansdowne.
In Division Two, Old Crescent and Wanderers host Galwegians and Belfast Harlequins in re-arranged games, while Malone are at home to Blackrock. The proposed Old Wesley-Skerries game in Division Three has been moved back to March 26th.
