A dejected looking Reggie Corrigan and Trevor Brennan were first to emerge from a brief squad meeting yesterday in the Kingsley Hotel in Cork, and confirmation that they were the unlucky duo to miss out on the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers came when the 26-man squad for those games was then formally announced.
It was the least pleasurable act for the Irish management, but as team manager Donal Lenihan confirmed the Leinster duo's exclusion had more to do with injuries and lack of match practice than form.
With David Corkery also excluded, it probably means that Alan Quinlan - an addition to the original squad - was one of the more relieved players to have made the cut given he too has been obliged to sit out that last two squad get-togethers. However, he has missed no matches and could recover in time from his shoulder injury to play for Munster against Padova this weekend.
Against that, Irish coach Warren Gatland was at pains to emphasise that players were not to risk aggravating injuries by playing this weekend as an injury enforced watching brief at the squad sessions in Belfast on Monday and Tuesday might influence the selection of the team to play Georgia. Into this category fall Peter Clohessy and, probably, Victor Costello and Mick Galwey. The Irish management also confirmed that Paddy Johns' status as captain was not a season-long appointment and was dependent on him holding down his place in the highly disputed second-row area.
"Paddy was our choice four weeks ago. Therefore the events of the last few days had nothing to do with that decision," Lenihan emphasised.
Beyond the World Cup qualifiers on November 14th and 21st, the Irish management will re-examine their options before finalising a squad for the visit of world champions South Africa on November 28th.
Although the squad is well endowed with potential number sixes (aside from Quinlan, both Eric Miller and Dion O'Cuinneagain could be considered for that role) it lacks a traditional big-hitting blind-side flanker a la Brennan or Corkery, and it could be that one or other might yet force their way into the squad for that game.
For the time being, Gatland conceded that Ireland's next two opponents remain relatively unknown quantities. "I've read some of the reports of their (Georgia's) matches and spoken to some one who worked with them who told me they've a big physical forward pack, quite strong, who like to drive and maul. But he didn't know much about their back play, which could be quite limited, nor could I find out much about their fitness levels. We're quite limited in our knowledge and we don't know much about Romania either other than most of their players play in France and they did beat France two years ago."
It will be of some assistance to the Irish management, however, that Georgia and Romania meet in Ravenhill in between Ireland's two encounters, affording them the opportunity to run the rule over the Romanians.
Also missing from the chosen 26 was, of course, the Harlequins hooker. At a thinly attended press conference, at which it might have been just as quick to introduce the journalists by name, even polite inquiries about the player induced slightly weary expressions from Lenihan and Gatland, who reiterated their view that yes, Keith Wood is a world-class player, and the door is still ajar should he decide to sign his contract.
But Lenihan also pointed out that in a poll of English journalists last season, Wood's replacement Ross Nesdale was the unanimous choice as hooker on an Allied Dunbar Premiership XV.
Indeed, while the feeling is that Wood might come round and sign the contract in time for the South African match, even that scenario raises implications as to whether either Nesdale or Allen Clarke should them be elbowed aside for him.
In the interim, the Irish management have put that issue to rest, while the IRFU remain adamant that Wood, or any other Irish player who signs one of their contracts, is free to pursue independent commercial activities subject to them not being in conflict with the Union's five main sponsors; not being in IRFU employed time, such as match or squad weeks; and not while wearing the Irish jersey (at least without permission) and while giving the Union notification of these extra curricular activities.
All of which might be too many conditions for Wood or his solicitor's liking, but even so it suggests that the rebellious Irish and Lions hooker has more "intellectual rights" than he lets on or realises.
The bugbear of his image being used by all or any of the five main sponsors without his permission or financial remuneration remains (and dates back to such a poster last year) as, most likely, does the lack of a World Cup bonus scheme in the existing contract which lasts until June 2000.
Even so, there isn't a huge amount of sympathy for him even amongst his peers, although a few of his fellow English-based players mightn't be singing for joy over their contracts either.
When some of the youngsters in the huge throng which attended yesterday's squad session asked: "Where's Woody?" as the squad took to the main pitch, someone quipped: "He's sick".
Certainly the travelling Irish international roadshow is proving a big success. School day trips for several hundred to a squad session are eminently preferable to the classroom (as we all would vouch for) even on a windy and bitterly cold, if sun-kissed, Cork morning in Ballincollig, a progressive junior club with a huge catchment area six miles or so west of Cork on the Killarney road.
Training and scrumagging in unfashionable muck and being swamped for autographs probably does the players no harm (compared to the two men and a dog type of crowd which would probably watch them in Lansdowne Road) and was more akin to a Springboks or All Blacks session in their native lands.
"I was delighted with the turnout and after the amount of negative media that we've tended to get recently it was nice to have a training session where everything was so positive," noted a tonguein-cheek Gatland. "The kids were scrounging around for gear and socks, and it puts a positive light on the last few days."
Expressing himself well satisfied with the way this latest session has gone (the roadshow reassembles in Belfast on Monday) Gatland said: "We're a long way down the road, two weeks before a test match, in terms of organisation with the players and I'm pleased with the intensity of the commitment and the competition for places. Next week we'll be building up the intensity again and there'll be a lot of fine tuning."
At any rate, the players appear to have enjoyed themselves, the aforementioned excluded duo apart. As for absent friends, sympathy for Wood is fast diminishing and if he does come back into the fold he can expect more slaps on his balding pate and more ribbing than ever before. For the moment, Fester's new moniker is "the millionaire from Clare."
World Cup Squad
Backs: C O'Shea (London Irish), G Dempsey (Terenure College), J Bishop (London Irish), K Maggs (Bath), D O'Mahony (Bedford), R Henderson (Wasps), J Bell (Dungannon), P Duignan (Galwegians), E Elwood (Galwegians), D Humphreys (Dungannon), C McGuinness (St Mary's College), C Scally (UCD).
Forwards: P Wallace (Saracens), P Clohessy (Young Munster), J Fitzpatrick (Dungannon), R Nesdale (Newcastle), A Clarke (Dungannon), P Johns (capt, Saracens), M O'Kelly (London Irish), M Galwey (Shannon), J Davidson (Castres), V Costello (St Mary's College), E Miller (Terenure College), A Ward (Ballynahinch), D O Cuinneagain (Sale), A Quinlan (Shannon).
