end

Punters in Ireland will be able to get a close-up look at the Lions before they head Down Under thanks to Carton House being chosen for the pre-tour camp.

The tourists will begin arriving in Kildare on 19 May and the camp will wrap up on Friday 24th before heading to London for the farewell dinner. They fly out to Hong Kong on Monday 27^th.

The plan I understand is for sessions to be open to the general public, and once they arrive in Australia the shutters will come down.

In the time frame between the tour announcement in London next Tuesday, the camp itself, and then the opener in Hong Kong – where local interest is less than fever pitch – Warren Gatland will have been forced to make a handful of changes because of injury. And it will be interesting to see if that alters the mix in the squad.

As it stands Wales will skate in with the biggest representation when the squad is announced in London on Tuesday. In the Sunday Independent I’ll pick the combination I’d like to see going, but I’d be confident Gatland will bring at least nine Irish players: Kearney, Bowe, O’Driscoll, Sexton, Healy, Ross, O’Connell, O’Brien and Heaslip.

The coach is off to Montpellier tomorrow so that’s a last chance for Simon Zebo to stake a claim. Donnacha Ryan as well, though I wonder about the state of his shoulder at this stage.

Conor Murray would be nailed on in most people’s squads – as one of three – but Rob Howley will be making the key call here. Do they want to go with two big physical players and a runner to change it up, or one big man and two runners. If it’s the latter then Murray will lose out to Danny Care, with Mike Phillips and Ben Youngs filling the first two spots.

Not many across the water would have Mike Ross in their team but Graham Rowntree will have a big shout here and he’s a fan of the Leinster tight head.

Equally Jamie Heaslip doesn’t have too many admirers but Gatland will be swayed by the experience of four years ago in South Africa when Heaslip got better as the tour went on.

As for the captaincy, you can interpret in a number of ways Gatland’s comment a few weeks ago that he isn’t hung up on the tour captain being the Test captain. In that case your figurehead must have profile and gravitas. O’Driscoll is out front on that one.

end

Having slow motioned the sequence to a gazillionth of a second he could announce – all CSI like – that in fact O’Connell did connect with his target (the ball) using his boot. The pocket of turbulence on the flight path however was Kearney’s head, and the fact that it was O’Connell’s shin that made contact there confirmed that the whole thing was accidental.

We’ll come back to that bit.

Citing commissioner Eddie Walsh is from Athlone, and not Greenfields, as was suggested to me earlier today. He is not a card carrying Red and was chosen for the job because he is experienced and independent of Leinster and Munster. He is also – as all citing commissioners are in Ireland – a former referee.
Walsh had all the angles and slowmos to help deal with the main criterion on his worksheet: applying the red card test. So if he thinks the incident warranted a red card, he cites the player; if not, there is no case to answer. Walsh reported that the act was careless, and there is no sanction in the law book for carelessness.

In arriving at this conclusion Walsh had to decide if what O’Connell did was an insidious act of foul play. For example the same man had reckoned on exactly that when citing Bakkies Botha in the Heineken Cup the previous weekend, when the former Bok used his knee to bowl over Marcos Ayerza en route to touching down. The case was thrown out.
In order to arrive at this conclusion you have to infer intent. I was struck by the reporting elsewhere of the O’Connell incident which claimed conclusively that it was accidental. How can you arrive safely at that point without putting the player on the spot and asking him to justify his actions?

Moreover I was under the mistaken impression that the citing officer didn’t have to infer degrees of intent, rather it was enough to establish that the incident had  occurred. I’ve spoken to a few people today who earn their corn from this stuff and even they are not clear on the protocol. Their guide is the law book but seemingly there is no specific set of instructions for the citing officer. Certainly however Walsh could have cited O’Connell under Law 10.4 (C)  – ‘A player must not  kick an opponent’ – and let the wigs and gowns take it from there.

This is what he should have done. At least that way O’Connell would have had to explain why he thought it a good idea to swing a boot at the ball – did he not consider maybe regaining possession by picking it up? – when Kearney’s head was in the way. That wasn’t careless, it was plain dangerous, and avoidable, and it had serious consequences which could have been much worse.  If you can’t send players off for that, how can you claim to have player welfare at the top of your agenda?

Next September ERC will run one of its seminars for citing officers (many of whom serve in the Pro 12) where they compare notes and get up to speed on the latest things to watch out for. Perhaps by then they will be clearer on the protocol when a serious injury has occurred as a result of dangerous play that could have been avoided.

end

Brian O’Driscoll may well continue with Leinster and Ireland for another season, despite widespread opinion that the Lions tour to Australia is shaping up as his last act on a rugby field.

I understand from sources close to the former Ireland captain that it’s by no means a done deal that this will be his last summer as a professional rugby player.

First there is the Joe Schmidt factor. My clear understanding is that O’Driscoll would have retired, despite having the hump with the way his Six Nations finished, in Rome, had there not been regime change. Just as Declan Kidney was finished with O’Driscoll as captain, so was the player finished with Kidney as coach.

The prospect of Schmidt getting the Ireland job would weigh in favour of keeping O’Driscoll on for another year. They have an excellent relationship and if everything else was right then they would be happy to crack on together.

Second there is the Lions. Warren Gatland’s attitude to the captaincy is that whoever wears the armband on tour may not automatically be wearing it when the team runs out in the three Tests. So he will pick his team for those contests and then consider who should lead. The tour captain may not be in the 22.

If Gatland is going down the power route then Jamie Roberts and Manu Tuilagi will be his centre pairing, in which case he can select O’Driscoll as the tour leader bringing an unrivalled level of experience to the job.

I don’t know if O’Driscoll would consider that the ideal sign-off to his career but either way I’m pretty certain he doesn’t want what happened in Stadio Olimpico to have been his final act in green.

Third there is his physical wellbeing. There will be a price to be paid down the line for the brutal physicality of modern day professional rugby, where ‘bigger, faster, stronger’ is the primary pursuit in player development. O’Driscoll has taken a hammering in almost 15 seasons of Test rugby. When at the end of the Lions tour four years ago he started talking about Australia in 2013 I though he’d had his bell rung once too often. He’s had a few more dings since then, but comparatively this has been a low level season for him. Between injury and suspension he’s played 80 minutes only five times for Leinster (out of nine games) and three times for Ireland (out of five), albeit with two of those early international departures coming in the last 10 minutes.

So he’s probably been in worse nick. And if his body hasn’t quite fallen apart, and the coach he rates highest is closing in on the top job in the land, then maybe one more campaign is on the cards.

end

When you see odds of 1/2 lobbed on someone’s head you don’t so much infer a hot favourite as a race that’s already been run. And the winner is Ewen McKenzie? Eh, not so fast there big boy.

From my very limited knowledge of how these things work, that price may represent the bookie taking a position as much as it does a hefty wedge being tacked onto one of the runners. This race is only starting, and if you remember that canter over in Merrion Sq which was eventually won by Trapattoni, four different favourites emerged over the course before the Italian got home.

A month ago McKenzie came out front and said that he would be wrapping up with the Reds at the end of this season, and that he wanted to step up a level thereafter. This was calculated to increase the heat under Robbie Deans’s backside.

It was a surprise that Deans has lasted as long as this. The end of the spring tour, as it is for the Aussies coming to Europe in November, seemed the perfect point to cut him loose from his win ratio of sub 60 per cent. The Lions series is the last junction before the World Cup if they want to change direction.

Even if that goes ok for the Wallabies, it might be spun into something that could and should have been better. In which case McKenzie will slot into the role. If he fetches up in Dublin then it will have all gone wrong.

* * *

BEST LOOKS TO FRANCE

All the talk of making Twickenham home this weekend and Ulster going head to head with Mark McCall brought to mind a previous era when the Bangor man was enjoying his time in Ravenhill. I remember interviewing him during that period – they won the Celtic League in 2006 – and he was looking forward to a future built on a pack of home produced forwards. It ended soon after that.

One of the leading lights in that group was Neil Best. You’ll remember him as a dangerously physical flanker, with an attitude that was perfectly suited for playing high profile teams. He didn’t give a toss how many caps his opposite number had, he just wanted to level him.

Now with Worcester, a family man with a missus and three kids, the next step for Neil Best looks like taking the brood off to France.

“I’m in good nick and playing well and enjoying it as much as ever but I’m getting on now (he turned 34 last month) and they’ll want an England qualified player to replace me,” he says. “There’s that financial tie up with the RFU for getting more English eligible players into the squad, so I won’t be getting an offer next season.

“When you’re on your own you’d go anywhere but with the family now I have to give it a bit of thought. A good offer from France would be nice. Or the Ireland coaching job. I tried a bit of that with Warwickshire county a while back and it was like pulling teeth. Still, it would pay well – you reckon I have a chance?”

He will make some club in France happy.

* * *

MUNSTER MESS NEEDS AIRING

The Munster schools agm next month is sure to feature another episode in the  saga about restrictive practice – ie the new regulation, due to come in next season, forcing players who change schools midstream to sit out a year before they can play senior cup rugby for their new school. So for example if, after your junior cert, you are offered a place in one of the big rugby schools, then it will involve missing a year’s rugby before you can qualify to wear the new jersey.

This topic was given a good chunk of airtime on Pat Kenny’s radio show last week. It featured a compelling argument from John Broderick of St Munchin’s that it was unconstitutional to deny a young man the chance to escape a regeneration area in Limerick and transfer to the stimulating and challenging environment of his school. For colour he had the testimony of Keith Earls who said that if he hadn’t been able to make the same switch he wouldn’t be sure how his life would have turned out.

The bizarre bit was that there was no explanation of why the regulation has won the support of five of the eight schools in the competition – Pres Cork, Glenstal, Crescent, Castletroy and Ard Scoil Ris; with Rockwell, St Munchin’s and Christians opposed to it.

Incredibly there had been virtualy nothing forthcoming from the Munster branch. If legal action unfolds then it will cost them to open their mouths.

I’m going to take a wild stab here and infer that the regulation is to combat a recruitment drive by some schools to strengthen their senior cup programmes. Given that not every school is entitled to draw from outside their catchment area, and may have neither the cash nor the will to pursue this policy even if they had, clearly this practice isn’t being carried out on a level playing pitch. Nor was there any mention of the effect on youth rugby who stand to lose players when big schools come calling.

Surely the solution is to look on each case on its merits. That way the St Munchin’s plan to offer an alternative lifestyle to those who need it, wouldn’t be dead in the water. That the saga is unfolding in a vacuum however highlights how the schools like to operate in a little world of their own. Not good for business, that.

Just as one door is about to close, another one opens. And the good news for Declan Kidney is that his next gig may be a 10 minute spin from his gaff in Ballincollig.

UCC, where he picked up an Alumni Award in 2008, are in the market for a director of sport, and who would do the job better than one of their own?

He would actually be pretty good at it. Media was never Deccie’s thing but he would have learned enough from his years in the hot seats of Munster and Ireland about how to raise profile, and the college want to do just that for their sports programme.

I guess he’d be well able for the political manoeuvring as well. To have survived the shark pool in Lansdowne Road for as long as he did took a bit of effort.

The wedge is in the region of €80-100k, so, unlike a lot of players he would have coached, going back to the real world doesn’t mean falling off a cliff financially. And having been a high earner since Munster’s first Heineken Cup final, in 2000, the recession is not something that is about to tear the backside out of Kidney’s modest lifestyle.

The only question is how he would fill the void left by coaching. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t fetch up on a green field again before too long.

* * *

GATLAND AND HIS LITTLE SHOP WINDOW

“I’ll guarantee everyone a start in the first three games so they’ll get an opportunity to put themselves in the shop window, and for us then it’s about trying to prepare and get ourselves right for that first Test.”

So says Warren Gatland http://vimeo.com/62690445   in one of about a hundred interviews he’ll be doing between now and departure for Australia. Given that the first of those three games is against the Barbarians, in Hong Kong, you could conceivably be out of the running before you even land in Perth.

He says he doesn’t mind suffering a few setbacks along the way if it means having the combinations right by the time they arrive in Brisbane for the first Test. That neatly illustrates the scale of the climb on these trips: three games to satisfy all concerned that they’re getting a fair shake; followed by another three, and suddenly you’re already at the business end.

* * *

SEXTON SEEING RED

Leinster hooker Tom Sexton could well find himself featuring against the Lions when the tourists play the Rebels in Melbourne in between the first and second Tests. Sexton was originally due to link up with his new club in August, but things might have to shift forward a bit.

“They’re keen to put out an Aussie qualified team against the Lions and neither of the hookers are in that category so they may need me earlier,” he says. “I’ll know in a couple of weeks.”

Sexton is Aussie born (Irish father, Australian mother) and was four when the family upped sticks to come to Ireland. He won a senior schools medal with Belvedere in 2008 and Leinster picked him up thereafter, but opportunities have been few and far between.

“There haven’t been as many as I’d hoped (seven games) but there’s absolutely no bitterness – just time to move on as I’m ambitious. I could have stuck around but I want to take a chance and make something of myself.”

It’s hardly that big of a risk. With Richardt Strauss, Sean Cronin and Aaron Dundon blocking out all the sunlight in the RDS, a two year deal in Melbourne where he will have a family support network is a great opportunity. Getting a run against the Lions would be a phenomenal way to start.

* * *

LONG GOOD FRIDAY

Time was when Good Friday would be spent looking forward to Holy Saturday when saloon bars would swing open their doors again. And then sport got in on the act – driven by the need to get punters in the gate – and gradually little chinks began to appear in the legislation.

So instead of checking into a hotel, or taking a train or boat trip, or slipping into the bar in the Abbey Theatre, or National Concert Hall, you might get yourself an exemption from the courts to run your match with some swill thrown in.

Munster led the charge for their league game with Leinster two seasons ago when they succeeded in having the Good Friday drinking laws relaxed so that the weary travellers could wet their whistles. Other clubs have followed suit. So if you’re in the region of Musgrave Park on Friday, and you feel the need for a local derby followed by a glass of shandy, then Dolphin and Cons are for you. The shandy mind will be available only to members and their guests…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzuC7y_6__w .

end

We used to look at the decision in 2008 to run with Denis Hurley and Tomas O’Leary ahead of Shaun Payne and Peter Stringer for Munster as the high water mark for Declan Kidney’s capacity to surprise. And then he goes and leaves Ronan O’Gara on the bench for Sunday’s trip to Murrayfield.

While that’s the call that will dominate Irish media for the next few days there are another couple of curve balls in the coach’s selection.

Despite being left out in the cold in November, and for the first two rounds of the Championship, Tom Court is brought back to start at loose head. Which leaves Dave Kilcoyne wondering why he’s not in for the suspended Cian Healy, particularly with Scotland’s first choice Euan Murray not available.

And Devin Toner is also back in the frame with the possibility of his first Six Nations cap, having got three runs back in November 2010. Chances are the only way he’ll be coming on though is if Ulster’s Iain Henderson is coming off having been sprung from the bench.

All in all then, a good day for Ulster. Luke Marshall will make his debut alongside Jackson, giving the province a whopping five starters, plus two on the bench.

Happy days for Luke Fitzgerald as well. He’s had four successful runs for Leinster since recovering from the neck injury that threatened his career, and now suddenly finds himself back in a match day Ireland squad for the first time since the World Cup warm up against France in 2011.

The news for the next few days however will be evenly split between Paddy Jackson and Ronan O’Gara. The only time Jackson will have experienced anything like this attention was in the Heineken Cup final last May when he came close to a meltdown. And he didn’t have to deal with the responsibility of goal kicking, a load carried by Ruan Pienaar.

Interestingly the Springbok did those duties last weekend as well, against Zebre, when we wondered would Jackson have got his eye in seeing as he was sure to be involved in Edinburgh on Sunday. We expected that to be off the bench, if at all. And so did O’Gara, no doubt.

Then Kidney pulled this stunner. I understand completely where he’s coming from, in that O’Gara is a mile off the pace and at this stage in his career may never catch up again. His peak was 2006-2008 when he was the pivotal figure in Munster’s European dominance.

My choice to replace him however would have been Ian Madigan, given his form and confidence, and the fact that he is first choice kicker in the absence of Jonny Sexton. Clearly that was not going to happen, given that he was called in this week only as a bag holder.

For Jackson however the jump from being 10 for Ulster, with Pienaar taking the shots, to 10 for Ireland with a debutant outside him, and the goal-kicking responsibility on his shoulders, is cliff-edge stuff. For the coach as well as the player.

Ireland: Kearney; Gilroy, O’Driscoll, Marshall, Earls; Jackson, Murray; Court, Best, Ross, O’Callaghan, Ryan, O’Mahony, Heaslip, O’Brien. Reps: Cronin, Kilcoyne, Fitzpatrick, Toner, Henderson; Reddan, O’Gara, Fitzgerald

end

1. For the player: have a look at the ref before you wade in to mete out justice, whether you reckon it’s deserved or not.
2. For the Six Nations disciplinary machine: issue a post-decision statement that clearly paints a picture of why a three weeks’ suspension will take four weeks to serve. It shouldn’t take two goes to get it right.
3. For the IRFU: always bring your brief. Even if you’re going in with your hands up, as Healy was, you need a legal professional on hand to interpret regulations as they are being quoted. The IRFU will appeal the Healy case on the basis that the disciplinary panel overstepped the mark in getting into whether or not the prop might have played for Leinster tomorrow night. That’s what led to the judicial officer’s ‘three weeks means four’ trick. You suspect that had they been tooled up with legal muscle on the day, we wouldn’t be wondering about appeals now.

end

The Six Nations have managed to wade into some murky water on this one. The last sentence of the statement that accompanies the verdict reads:

The Committee allowed the maximum two weeks of mitigation, but, in imposing a suspension of three weeks, recognised that the player would not have played for his province this weekend is that the suspension will end at midnight on Sunday 10 March 2013.

In this country we’re familiar with meaningless bans. They used to be an issue in the GAA especially where end-of-season crimes carried a sentence served when the player was on holiday. Now they apply in competition time.

This Six Nations are trying to avoid a similar situation, where some of the sentence is redundant because the player would be inactive. So they give Healy three weeks, one of which wouldn’t mean a whole lot to him because it’s the Pro 12 game against Treviso on Saturday, and then declare that in fact he won’t be available to play for four weeks. I asked if any other players were lumbered with extras in this way but so far no answer is forthcoming.

You’re wondering why they don’t simply communicate in plain English that the player will be unavailable for four weeks, instead of three with a bit extra thrown in? Or that the ban relates only to Test matches, and to pick a number of games that fits the crime?

In this case what they’re doing is declaring the offence, where he was bang to rights, started off at mid range (five weeks) and was mitigated down to a three week sentence, which was expected. But rather than leave it at that, they stretch out the time off so that each week is meaningful.

It’s being reported that the start date is this coming weekend. It’s not. The start date is two days ago when the citing was made. But because the Six Nations have managed to wrap something simple in a package that’s hard to unravel, people will wonder what to think. And in the process, the declaration that he has received a three week ban is meaningless.

end

One thing we’ve learned from ugly optics on the rugby field is that what you see is not always what you get. So the seemingly awful stamp of Cian Healy on the ankle of Dan Cole was actually not as bad as appeared on action replays, and is unlikely to get him a lengthy ban tomorrow. I’d say he’ll get three weeks, and maybe just two.

Consider it under two criteria: intent and effect.

Healy’s intent was not cynical. Brutal, obviously, but not cynical. In 2006 and 2008 the IRB issued  directives to referees and judicial officers to, excuse the pun, come down hard on those who stamped on exposed limbs at the ruck.

It is gratuitous, potentially dangerous, and in no way related to freeing the ball so your team can get on with the game. It’s a case of taking the opportunity to inflict some pain on a helpless opponent. A classic example, which went unpunished, was Tom Court stamping on Leo Cullen in the Christmas derby in Ravenhill this season. Cullen jumped up full of fury at the time, and calmed down subsequently – maybe because he has done a bit of it himself through the years.

In Healy’s case, he didn’t arrive on the scene and then trample on Cole for the fun of it. On the contrary – he raced to it when he saw Cole (who was on the floor and therefore obliged to do nothing other than get out of the way) raise his right leg to impede Conor Murray in clearing the ball. It was reactionary rather than opportunistic.

Referee Jerome Garces had already indicated a penalty but by this stage Healy is on the charge. He can’t get at the ball where Murray is trying to free it, so he goes to the right hand side where Cole’s leg is still raised, and then stamps the offending foot back to earth. Next, he shoves it back out of the way. Whereupon he turns to look at Garces as if to ask why the ref hadn’t run in and done the same.

Interestingly, England hooker Tom Youngs reacts by having a go at Peter O’Mahony, who had taken a slice off Cole’s backside with a hefty stamp, rather than Healy.

As for the effect of Healy’s action, it was successful in moving the offending limb out of the way, and Cole – in fairness to him he made nothing of the incident – got up and played on. He was treated seven minutes later.

Healy has played 37 times for Ireland and 110 times for Leinster and, remarkably, has no cards for foul play. If you take it that the apparent ruthlessness used in the incident will have him in the mid range category, where the starting point is five weeks, then his good record will push him towards low end, which has an entry point of two weeks.

The tricky bit is the IRB instruction to judicial officers. They can’t be seen to issue instructions on the one hand and then not follow through with them on the other. The judicial officer, Roger Morris, however, will appreciate that the landscape is littered with examples of players being trampled on – with varying degrees of vigour – and getting away with it because it is doing so little damage. So it’s not as if the IRB’s directives have given us consistency on the issue. Lumping Healy with a hefty ban won’t achieve that.

end