Six Nations Ireland v ItalyNew brooms apply elsewhere but the cobwebs from Ireland's World Cup campaign still linger. Conservative and cautious, even more so under pressure, true to type, Eddie O'Sullivan's selection for Ireland's RBS Six Nations opener against Italy on Saturday is as predictable as it is familiar.
The four changes that there are from Ireland's last outing, that 30-15 defeat to Argentina, see Girvan Dempsey and Andrew Trimble (both of whom started against France the game before) return, with Rory Best and Malcolm O'Kelly - who came on as replacements against the Pumas - recalled for the suspended Jerry Flannery and sidelined Paul O'Connell.
The team boasts 755 caps, at slightly over half a century per man.
Save for Jamie Heaslip even the fresher looking faces on the bench, such as Bernard Jackman, Tony Buckley and Robert Kearney, can be at least partially attributed to Flannery's suspension, the sidelining of Simon Best and the retirement of Denis Hickie, along with Shane Horgan's recent injury.
O'Sullivan said that hooker and backrow were the closest calls, and that he had no issues with Trimble reverting to wing for the first time since he was exposed by blips in the defensive system against France at the World Cup. Trimble has played all of his 11 games for Ulster since then in midfield.
"He's done that before for us many times, come on to the wing for us, so there's nothing new there for him. His form has been good, he's playing well, he's a power runner and he's pushed his way in there. Geordan Murphy's form has been very good as well, so has Girvan Dempsey's." That said, Murphy has been playing at fullback.
Scrumhalf was "a tight call, with Eoin (Reddan) just edging it in the type of game we're playing."
Whereas some of O'Sullivan's counterparts are looking to develop new combinations, the under pressure Ireland coach no doubt hopes such a selection will support his repeated contention that "selection was right" in the World Cup. With Italy searching for new halfbacks and missing their last two captains, the retired Alessandro Troncon and the injured Marco Bortolami, the sole criterion of "winning the next game" ought realistically to be met, though sterner tests await.
Repeatedly citing the criterion of form selections hardly stacks up in a number of positions. One cannot, for example, cite Gordon D'Arcy at centre, Trimble on the wing, Denis Leamy at eight and Rory Best at hooker as form selections, given Leamy's return to form has coincided with a return to the blindside for his last five games and in comparison to the in-form Bernard Jackman, Best has completed just one full game since December 14th.
One might readily add that Murphy's good form recently has been at fullback and if there has been a form winger in Ulster, it's been Tommy Bowe.
Acknowledging that the form of Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy has been "patchy", O'Sullivan had a fair point when saying that "centres aren't falling out of the trees at the moment", though many a coach out there might have been tempted to play Trimble in midfield.
Emphasising that he "had talked to Michael Cheika about this a few times", O'Sullivan reasoned that Ronan O'Gara's playmaking and "incredible hands" rather than "the different type of outhalf" Felipe Contepomi is at Leinster, might be the catalyst for them to thrive again.
With such an unchanged side, and overt concentration on the Irish midfield as the primary source of go-forward momentum, it's no wonder that opposition defences are starting to read Ireland like an open book. Reddan can potentially provide more of a sniping threat at scrumhalf and in his playmaking role at Wasps is particularly adept in launching close-in forward runners, but changing the dynamics of the backrow that so disappointed at the World Cup by incorporating Heaslip would have been a further option, all the more so as the offloading and leadership of Horgan and Hickie will not be present.
According to the official IRB statistics, Ireland's backrow passed the least of all 20 countries at the World Cup. Heaslip, and for that matter Jackman, could have provided an injection of ball-carrying up front.
Of course they could be used as impact replacements, although O'Sullivan warned "a lot of people would disagree with my philosophy on substitutions but I don't see myself changing how I make substitutions or adjustments to the team."
Accepting that Ireland weren't favourites for his seventh Six Nations campaign, O'Sullivan admitted Ireland were carrying a World Cup hangover "which is going to cast some sort of a shadow over us".
The coach added: "If you look at it now there's nobody jumping out as favourites for the Six Nations. I think everybody is kinda looking at each other and wondering what's going to happen. It makes for a very interesting tournament."
As enthusiastic as ever? "Maybe more than ever," he said, smiling, adding that coaching was a constant challenge. "For me things never stay the same, they always change."
O'Sullivan was also questioned about his assertion in an interview with an English newspaper yesterday in which he stated: "I never had one negative letter after the World Cup, or anything like that. There's been absolutely no backlash at all from the public. Now, the perception the media gave off was that there was huge anger, huge frustration awaiting us. I'm sure the public were as disappointed as we were and a bit frustrated."
His questioner pointed out to the Irish coach that if one googled the words "O'Sullivan" and "resign" together you'd come up with 5,900 hits; that a petition, letters to The Irish Times, radio phone-ins and message boards all expressed anger with him.
O'Sullivan maintained: "Anyone I met didn't say anything negative to me, directly, face to face."
That, maintained the reporter, was a little different from asserting that there was absolutely no backlash at all from the public, prompting O'Sullivan to say it may have been a misquote and he had "no recollection of talking to an English newspaper".
