Well, one secret is out of the bag. At yesterday’s coach and captain press conference at the Dynamo Stadium in Houston, USA coach Mike Tolkin was asked to show his knowledge of this 29-man Ireland roster.
Now, if this was a southern hemisphere coach he would give the usual guff about respecting Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell. But with those icons among the 10 Irish players in Australia, Tolkin had to dig a little deeper.
“Madigan makes things happen. He is a spark plug of a player so we’ve been looking a lot at him.”
There also appears to be the potential for the rival camps to fall out. Ireland want water breaks. Humidity could be a telling factor in Saturday’s Test match on what is a decent if hard football pitch.
“We’ll see how severe the weather is,” said Tolkin. “It is a night game so (the temperature) drops down a little bit. We’ll see as needed.”
Doug Hall, the stadium’s general manager, chirped in: “I think it will drop from 92 to 90! Don’t expect too much of a drop there, coach.
“It should be fun,” Hall continued, warming to centre stage. “We’ll have a lot of ice and beer in the building. Not for your team but for the patrons.”
The water break issue will be cleared up tomorrow.
Hall wasn’t the first American this week to be inadvertently condescending to their visitors when introducing the Ireland captain.
“Peter O-Ma-Hon-ee. I don’t think we could get a more Irish name!”
O’Mahony responded with his best inmate smile.
What’s clear this week, considering the tourists lack of experience, is this represents the best chance for the USA to catch a tier one nation cold.
“Our tails have definitely gone up,” said US captain Todd Clever. “But all their players play Heineken Cup which is a much higher standard to what we have in the States.”
Tolkin elaborated: “There is definitely an opportunity when a team is depleted, but we got to remember after this tour about half of our guys will go back to work, whereas, the whole Irish squad go back to a full-time professional environment.”
Still, Taku Ngwenga, Samu Manoa, Chris Wyles and Scott LaValla came in from their European clubs on Monday. The latter trio should equal matters in the physical stakes, although Tolkin made another valid point.
“Irish guys are playing physical rugby week in, week out. Just look at the Leinster v Ulster match. That was hard rugby. Our guys are physically strong but won’t have that.
“It’s like a street fight. You can be big in the weight room but you got to have it on the street. Americans are always physical but it is the street fighter element that, hey, Ireland know how to bring it in a game. And not just the weight room.”
As The Rock likes to say: “Just bring it.”
