INTERNATIONAL RUGBY:IF NOTHING else, 10 changes in personnel should freshen up the training sessions and the desire levels approaching this Saturday's second Guinness Series Test match against the Samoans.
The flip side of a fourth successive Test defeat is opportunity now knocks for 10 voraciously hungry players, ranging from a debutant, Devin Toner, to a couple of centurions and seven more in between.
In unveiling a much-altered side to embark upon a mission of redemption this week, Declan Kidney maintained that a team showing 10 changes demonstrates Ireland have indeed developed a squad over the last 18 months or so.
The proof will be in the pudding, but the statistics would tend to back him up.
Despite altering two-thirds of the team, it’s striking to note the starting XV which will take on Samoa boasts a cumulative tally of 647 caps, as against the 510 which last Saturday’s line-up had accumulated.
It helps mind, when you have all three Irish centurions – Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara and John Hayes – on your team sheet.
The retention of both O’Driscoll and Jamie Heaslip, arguably Ireland’s two best and most important players, also shows the determination to obtain a win. Bearing in mind the Samoans’ physicality and their penchant for big body hits, this could be seen as something of a gamble with the All Blacks coming to town a week later.
However, Heaslip has started every Test he’s been available for since breaking into the team in the second match of the 2008 Six Nations, while O’Driscoll, aside from being heavily influential, possibly needs the game time anyway after three weeks on the sidelines with his hamstring problem.
For some of the old reliables opportunity hasn’t knocked in a while. It’s a first start in nearly 18 months for Stringer, in a year for Denis Leamy (recalled at blindside), and in eight months for John Hayes. Hayes’s presence ought to help the debutant Toner at lineout time, and by extension Seán Cronin, while Tom Court switches to loosehead after a decent scrimmaging effort as a replacement for Tony Buckley at tighthead last Saturday.
Seán O’Brien undoubtedly deserves his run at openside on his form for Leinster this season.
The Ulster pair of Andrew Trimble and Paddy Wallace are recalled after good summer tours, and Luke Fitzgerald is switched to fullback in the absence of Rob Kearney after a couple of outings.
Keith Earls is thus the unluckiest to miss out, his injury-affected season probably being a factor, and he will have to be a content with a place amongst the replacements, who will be finalised after training tomorrow.
Allowing for the entirely changed but slightly developmental team which took on Canada during the summer of 2009 – while the majority were away with the Lions – the last time Ireland made this many changes was when Eddie O’Sullivan brought back 10 players, mostly front-liners, for the second World Cup warm-up game against Italy at Ravenhill in August 2007.
Kidney confirmed there was a “palpable” lift in training yesterday. “Of course there is the disappointment that goes with last week but with the new fellas coming in there is excitement too. It’s one of the highs that lads were picked.
“Obviously the lads that weren’t picked were disappointed but the way they trained is testament to their professionalism.”
New combinations abound – though Stringer could probably find O’Gara blindfolded, Paddy Wallace and Brian O’Driscoll have been paying together on and off since winning the under-19 World Cup win a dozen years ago, and even Cronin was throwing to Toner at Irish under-19s and 20s level, not to mention the Churchill Cup two summers ago – and Kidney admitted there is a risk of things being disjointed.
“That would be a very fair comment but we’re always talking about building a squad and that is not an easy thing to do. The alternative is that the same 15 guys play but if you get injuries, it is very difficult to call on other fellas.”
O’Driscoll, O’Gara, Stringer and Hayes all survive from the 35-8 win over Samoa at Lansdowne Road in 2001, while only O’Gara remains from the 40-14 win in Apia in June ’03, when he augmented his 17-point haul in the first meeting with a 32-point haul.
“Sometimes when you play them in a non-World Cup year they mightn’t get the release of all their players,” said Kidney, “but in a World Cup year, the players are released under (IRB) Rule 9 or because they are demanded. They have gotten to the World Cup play-offs as often, if not more often than ourselves and in World Cup year you need that. This is a big test for us but we have a lot of faith in these guys and we believe they can do a good job.”
