RUGBY:AS EXPECTED, Conor Murray and Ronan O'Gara will form a new half-back partnership for Ireland's crunch World Cup Pool C shoot-out with Italy in Dunedin's enclosed Otago Stadium on Sunday (kick-off 8.30pm local time/8.30am Irish) after the Munster pair were named in Ireland's starting line-up by Declan Kidney yesterday.
The starting team shows eight changes from the team which beat Russia 62-12 last Sunday but, more pertinently, there are just two changes from the team which started the historic 15-6 win over Australia a fortnight ago, with Murray and O’Gara starting ahead of Eoin Reddan and Jonathan Sexton.
O’Gara’s selection will be a huge talking point, but had been flagged from earlier in the week and is entirely understandable. Both outhalves are playing well, but in Sexton’s case it is in spite of his goalkicking ratio of five from 13. By contrast, O’Gara is 10 from 12, which is further evidence that he is indeed in a good place, and a far batter place than, say, he was in France four years ago.
Such is his inclination to protect his players Declan Kidney, true to form, shed little light on the reasoning behind the half-back selection, other than highlighting how well they’re all going and adding: “I just think it’s a good combination this time going into it.”
Whereas the rest of the team is cast in stone, barring injuries, Ireland have not played the same half-back pairing for successive games in seven Tests this season, and this will be both a new combination, and a fifth one, in that time.
Invariably, the contrasting place-kicking form will be seen as a decisive factor in the selection at outhalf, all the more so given the knockout nature of this game.
“He (O’Gara) has been place-kicking well,” admitted Kidney, “and I know there’s things about Jonny’s (place-kicking), but we’ve all seen that in players before and I’ve no doubt that if Jonny had to start on Sunday that wouldn’t worry me either.
“I’d hate to go down the road that we’re picking Ronan because of place-kicking. He’s too good a player to be saying that about, and Jonny’s place-kicking isn’t a concern for me so I wouldn’t be knocking that back either.”
Nor would Kidney concur with the view that Murray’s physicality around the fringes was preferred for countering the physicality of Sergio Parisse and co. “No, not really. They’ve played together a few times now, Conor and Ronan, but then again Ronan has also played with Isaac and with Eoin a good few times as well then too going back to previous World Cups and in between,” said Kidney, in reference to the half-back pairing that finished the 2007 tournament after Peter Stringer was sent to Coventry.
Prior to this morning’s training session, there remained doubts about Paul O’Connell (hamstring) and Tommy Bowe (calf). The inspirational O’Connell hasn’t trained since tweaking his hamstring in the warm-up against Australia, which only goes to show how even more ridiculously good his performance was, though he had been back running by Thursday.
O’Connell himself apparently remains optimistic about playing. If ruled out, Leo Cullen’s experience and lineout expertise would be called upon to start.
Similarly Bowe was “running great speeds” on Wednesday according to the coach, and after yesterday’s down day Kidney expected the Ospreys winger to have trained fully this morning.
In some respects, this shoot-out has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, even if privately you wonder whether at least some of the management and playing group haven’t bemoaned the failure to score that fourth try against the USA. But for that, Ireland would only need one bonus point on Sunday to top the pool.
The knock-out nature of this contest is something Kidney, as much as any of the players, is well used to from last-round pool matches in the Heineken Cup.
“It’s great, isn’t it?” he said with a smile. “This is where we want to get to. From a long time back all the talk was of Australia but in our own minds we always knew it was going to be Italy.
“Australia was the attractive one to win; Italy was the necessary one to win. On the law of averages Australia were going to beat Italy in the first match and then unless you do a New Zealand on it and get 15 points in your first three games, this was always going to come down to it.
“England and South Africa are in the same situation, aren’t they?” he added, entirely validly. “They’ve three wins from three and yet, they’re in a Cup final situation too. Wales are probably in the happiest position, because Wales could go into their match in a handy situation.”
Yet, after that epic win over Australia at a throbbing Eden Park, defeat and a third pre-quarter-final exit in four World Cups would be all the more heartbreaking. “Yes, but what you do is use that to give you a bit of momentum. It’s been good for us in that sense and that momentum was definitely carried on by the lads who played last week.”
He is “delighted” by the fact that up to seven of this starting team have been refreshed by not playing since Eden Park. “You need that keenness to it.”
They certainly do.
IRELAND(v Italy, Dunedin, Sunday, 8.30am)
15 Rob Kearney (Leinster)
14 Tommy Bowe (Ospreys) or Andrew Trimble (Ulster)
13 Brian O'Driscoll (Leinster, c)
12 Gordon D'Arcy (Leinster)
11 Keith Earls (Munster)
10 Ronan O'Gara (Munster)
9 Conor Murray (Munster)
1 Cian Healy (Leinster)
2 Rory Best (Ulster)
3 Mike Ross (Leinster)
4 Donncha O'Callaghan (Munster)
5 Paul O'Connell (Munster) or Leo Cullen (Leinster)
6 Stephen Ferris (Ulster)
7 Seán O'Brien (Leinster)
8 Jamie Heaslip (Leinster)
Replacements: Seán Cronin (Leinster), Tom Court (Ulster) or Tony Buckley (Sale), – two from Donnacha Ryan (Munster), Leo Cullen (Leinster) and Denis Leamy (Munster) – Eoin Reddan (Leinster), Jonathan Sexton (Leinster), – one from Andrew Trimble (Ulster), Tommy Bowe (Ospreys) or Geordan Murphy (Leicester).
