Johnny Wattersonon how the winger has gained from his club move to the high-flying Welsh side and his national team has benefited in turn

THINGS HAVE moved on, Declan Kidney told us yesterday in Killiney. Paradigms have shifted. There used to be Jaffa Cakes and Mars bars in the changing-room. Seen more as energy-givers than tooth-decayers, nutritionists have now carried out a make-over.

“I used to love it,” he added, chuckling away at the top table with his candy thoughts. The training sessions have become shorter, more intense, focused. The coach listens to the players’ views, canvasses opinion and from that body of original material he shapes his side.

Tommy Bowe, like Kidney does now, sought opinion, talked to people before he took the decision at the end of last season to part company with Ulster, where he had been for five years. Former Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan was one of his confidantes.

O’Sullivan cautioned against expecting a start every week.

In this year of the Ireland team communicating, working things out as a group, Bowe has thrived. The greater community effort has earned him the vote of Kidney and the imprimatur of senior players. The move away from his Ulster comfort zone has, like the Jaffa Cakes once did, energised the Irish right wing, while the new Welsh philosophy has handed him fresh eyes.

“The main point Eddie O’Sullivan had for me at the time was that moving to the Ospreys, into a pretty big squad, I might be going from a regular starting spot with Ulster to a side where he was afraid I might not get my place on the team every week,” Bowe explained.

“It was in my head too. You had Nikki Walker there, a Scottish international playing very well, Shane Williams, Lee Byrne, a world-class backline.

“I don’t think it was ever a case of Eddie saying ‘if you leave you won’t get picked’. You had Eoin Redden (Wasps) playing, Simon Easterby, who is in Wales and has a countless number of caps, Geordan Murphy (Leicester) who has played 50-plus times for Ireland.

“I think he (O’Sullivan) maybe didn’t seem to favour them but at the same time he was able to give the boys their chance.”

Opportunity was another theme of Kidney’s. Thoughts of permanent ownership of the shirt are heretical, while the competitive tension in the squad has had the consequence of encouraging those at the back and pressurising those in the front line. Bowe has annexed Shane Horgan’s position. His pressure now is from the back.

But the move to his current talented band of Welsh brothers has been at the heart of his successful shirt grab.

“I’d to make sure that moving away wasn’t going to hinder my selection too much,” he says. “There are plenty of windows for the coaches to see me. We pretty much play against one of the Irish provinces once every four games.

“But so far so good. Things have been going well. I’ve been getting to play centre, fullback, wing, something I’ve really enjoyed.

“Having to turn up on Monday morning to training, having to bust your ass every day to make sure you get selected was definitely a big kick for me, something that has pushed on my game, I think.

“In Ospreys we are encouraged to play no matter what position we turn up in, not according to what the number on our back is. There’s times in a match where you have to get in and get the ball out. I’ve no problem doing that at all.”

Bowe is an expansive, muscled, likeable character with an uncomplicated charm, all permissible characteristics when you are selfless on the pitch. Preying on Sebastien Chabal as the French secondrow was thundering in last week was a try save.

Rob Kearney was close but perhaps, given the “Caveman’s” momentum not close enough.

“’Course he (Kearney) would have made it. I was only helping him out,” offers comrade Bowe. But his lines of running have improved as well as the breadth of his ambition on the pitch.

In the second half in Croke Park a deft chip over the French cover decorated a break out from defence.

A year ago he would have tried to bullock through the bodies using his strength. His dream now is two-fold: take the Italians on Sunday and set up a Grand Slam match against Wales in Cardiff.

“For me that would be the biggest game of the year. To be able to come up against those boys and to beat them over there would be something else,” he says warming to a mischievous thought.

“It would be as good as going to Thomond in a couple of weeks,” he adds smiling, “and beating those Munster boys down there.”