Saracens' Australian scrum-half Brad Free has been included in the Exiles squad for Wednesday's game against an Irish Development XV in Limerick. Free, whose mother was Irish and who possesses an Irish passport, is a former Queensland player, who remained behind after the Australian provincial side toured Britain last year. He has been a regular on the Saracens team this season in the absence of English international Kyran Bracken.
One of three scrum-halves named in the Exiles squad, he will start the match. Unfortunately, Niall Woods will miss the match through injury, while former Irish scrum-half, Christian Saverimutto is unavailable.
The squad contains one full international, full back Simon Mason, but arguably of more interest to the Irish management team of Brian Ashton and Pat Whelan will be the respective performances of flying Richmond wing Dominic Chapman and last season's Irish under-21 number eight Simon Easterby. The Exiles will be coached by Peter Halsall and Kevin Short.
Meanwhile, the All-Ireland League, newly re-incarnated as the AIB League, begins in a low-key fashion with the Division Two clash of Old Wesley and Instonians at Donnybrook today.
The leagues proper begin on November 22nd, but today's game has been brought forward because Wesley and their co-tenants at Donnybrook, Bective Rangers, were drawn at home on the opening day of the season.
Instonians have a number of injury problems and have yet to finalise their team, while Old Wesley make one change to the team announced earlier in the week, with Robert Jones replacing Chis Pratt at open side flanker.
Despite being without captain Rory Moloney and second row Dave Bursey, and performing poorly in the Leinster Championship, Wesley may still prove too capable for their Ulster visitors.
The Leinster competition has reached the semi-final stage, offering two potentially entertaining confrontations.
Terenure College will be marginal favourites to squeeze past Clontarf at Lakelands. The home side, with former Blackrock boys Rory Sheriff and Pat Holden in the second row, topped their section. Clontarf give a debut to 26-year-old Poverty Bay number eight Craig Brownlee. Terenure's greater fluency behind the scrum may decide the issue.
Lansdowne make the difficult journey to Oak Park, where they face a County Carlow team that have shattered one reputation after another this season. They belied their Division Four status to head the section. The foundation for their superb run is a hugely powerful pack, noted for their scrummaging ability, and free scoring New Zealand number eight Andrew Melville.
Lansdowne include their own New Zealander in Anton Forde, and they have Leinster players in Richard Governey, David O'Mahoney (their scrum-half), Angus McKeen, Stephen Rooney and Colin McEntee. Anything other than a totally-committed performance from the visitors may yield failure.
