Following on from the huge build up to the Australian match Sundays clash with Russia has been predictably low key. Because of the great win and the massive performance last week Declan Kidney and his management have been able to stick to what I expect was the pre tournament strategy of using the Russia game to rest the key players and give some of the fringe members of the Squad game time. After the game Sunday morning 29 of our 30 man squad will have played in a World Cup the odd man out being Damien Varley who replaced Jerry Flannery. The benefits of Squad rotation are two fold. Its very hard to play matches of this intensity 5-6 weeks in a row and also if the fringe players don’t get sufficient game time they can feel marginalized and it effects the whole squads morale.
The only real area on interest in terms of the selection for me is Fergis McFadden on the wing and Paddy Wallace at inside centre. With doubts about Gordon D’Arcys fitness it seems that Declan will play Paddy there. Paddy Wallace is an excellent footballer but isn’t the most physical of players and looking further down the track opposition centres like Jamie Roberts and Manu Tuilagi could make holes in this area. I presume that Tom Court has a knock as I would have preferred to see Cian Healy rested and hopefully Mike Ross doesn’t need to play too much or pick up an Injury.
Tim Horan has got quite a bit of attention for his suggestion that Irelands tactics to beat Australia where based around feigning injury to make the game a stop-start affair. He was quoted as saying that Ireland Backs coach Alan Gaffney told him in the Irish dressing room afterwards that was our Plan. Declan Kidney has rubbished the rumours and said that Horan didn’t even speak to Gaffney and wasn’t in the Irish team dressing room. It just shows how the Australians are struggling to accept their defeat. They were comprehensively outplayed and outsmarted and they should look at them selves rather than for excuses. I am sure that Ireland didn’t have a policy on the area but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that if you are leading a match with a few minutes to go there is no need to rush to a set piece etc. That’s what winning teams do! It’s the same as putting the ball in Row Z at Sunday morning Soccer match for a pub team!
In next weeks Blog I will review our performance against Russia and look at the key head to heads for the Italian Job!
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