As Irish team selections go, yesterday's announcement of the side to begin the World Cup against the USA this Saturday wasn't exactly a bag full of surprises - which, of course, is how it should be by this stage. In the event, it is the exact same side which kicked off the 32-26 win over Argentina last month.
In what Donal Lenihan described as "very close to our strongest Test side", about the only bone of selectorial contention would have been the second-row, an area Warren Gatland readily picked out when asked to pinpoint any debatable selections. In the event, Malcolm O'Kelly has been kept on the bench by Paddy Johns and the rejuvenated Jeremy Davidson.
"We decided that we were happy with the way those two second-rows performed against Argentina but I wouldn't be surprised to see Malcolm O'Kelly take the field on Saturday at some stage to give him another opportunity," said the Irish coach.
"As Donal has mentioned before it's a matter of picking horses for courses. This is the first game of the tournament and we're looking at it that way."
As Lenihan has also said the two-from-three second-row combination might also depend on the opposition in question, the Irish management clearly expect a vigorous physical approach from the Americans. Accordingly, by pairing Johns and Davidson behind a front-row including Peter Clohessy and Keith Wood, along with Trevor Brennan in the backrow, they've probably gone for the most physically aggressive pack available.
Gatland admitted that the US do worry him. "For us, we trained well for the first two days (this week) and the players were probably ready to play today. So it's a matter of just trying to pull the reins in a little bit, keep them focussed and calm and relaxed and not be too apprehensive if we need to weather a storm that's going to come at us from the Americans.
"They have definitely targeted us as a game that they can win. We're expecting them to really come at us and if things don't go for us in the first 30 minutes, we'll need to be clinical and we'll need to be patient."
Davidson and Brennan were unable to take part in yesterday's squad session, the former due to a minor back strain which confined him to a session in the pool and the latter due to a bout of gastro-enteritis which is confidently expected to be a 24-hour bug.
On the scenic, sun-kissed, treeladen lawns of the Finnstown House Hotel, the media presence was about 50 times greater than just a few long weeks ago, even drowning out the Hitchcockian noise of birds above, and prompted Lenihan to remark: "Is there nothing else going on in the World Cup today?" Things are beginning to crank up.
