A small part vital to the big picture

MARK McCALL is bored to death by questions about his size. They have followed him ever since he stepped on to the pitch in Ireland's first Test against New Zealand in Dunedin in 1992. Philip Danaher limped off with a knee injury. McCall took his place. Since then he has been listening to a familiar mantra.

Regularly, monotonously and predictably, it starts with questions about the modern game and its demands. It progresses to questions about the beefed-up, new breeds that thunder around midfield. The Joe Roffs of the game. And in amongst them, wee Mark McCall.

It's as though his critics can get a foothold on little else in his game. McCall's body stopped growing upwards when most centres kept going to somewhere around the six-foot mark. Ask him about it and he'll tell you to think what you like. He has heard it all over the last five years. It's not an issue for Ireland's inside centre. Enough muscle hangs from his frame. Sufficient grey matter occupies his head. He won't knock players back five yards. He knows that. He won't skin them with blistering pace. He knows that, too.

The choirboy looks don't help. A full set of teeth and a straight nose. Compact ears and an athletic face free of any obvious physical trauma. No evidence of being in the wars, yet McCall's willingness to hit whoever needs hitting and his ability to hit them often has never been in doubt. _

At 28, he could pass for a

Walking into the lobby of the team's Limerick base this week, beside his room-mate James Topping, the senior player could easily have been mistaken for his junior counterpart. Talk to him and you sense a soundness of judgment, a strong feeling of what his game for Ireland is about, what he must do, what he must not do.

Topping is a player he will look for against Australia today. McCall picked him out last week in Ulster's game against the tourists when he dropped a beautifully weighted ball into his right wing's lap, allowing him to break in at pace and swashbuckle his way over the line.

In essence, the two men couldn't be more different: Topping raw and eager in possession, McCall fierce in his tackling, but measured and organised in his general play.

"Having played outside half initially, I think I've certain qualities at inside centre. I'm not the biggest thing out there. I'm not the biggest crash-ball centre, but I think I've other things to offer. There has always been the size thing. Everybody talks about it all the time.

"It's kind of frustrating and at this stage it's boring me to death. I've worked hard at building myself up and even before this summer, when I did a lot more work with weights, I thought I'd have been one of the more competitive wee buggers who has never shirked from tackling.

"I see my role as moving into one line, passing and making space for other people. Also organising, It's something I naturally do and I do it at Dungannon as well. I think it's one of the reasons the selectors picked me. Once I get on to the park you can't shut me up."

Today's game gives McCall his fifth cap in as many years of trying. His career has been chequered, he admits, but the years of captaining the A team and occasionally stepping in to the senior side have not idly passed him by.

His move to Dungannon from Bangor last season may have come a year later than was best for him. McCall knew all along that third division rugby with his mates might have been idyllic, but it was not the place for internationals who wished to hold down a regular job on the Irish side. He spent 10 years in the holiday town. He has friends there. They understood when he left. Some couldn't understand why he didn't leave earlier.

"I'd been captain for a couple of years and Bangor slipped down the leagues a bit. It wasn't right for me to walk away having been captain. Around then Bangor had some very talented players coming through. Unfortunately, they were snared away as well. At that point there was no light at the end of the tunnel."

What McCall seeks today is a performance that will invite the selectors to look at his place in the Irish team in a different way. He no longer wants to be seen as a man on the periphery. Of his four caps so far two have been earned as a substitute. In 1992, he came on for an injured Danaher and last year he played against England in the Five Nations, again as a replacement.

In 1994, when Ireland lost to Wales by a point in the Five Nations championship, McCall was the only player subsequently left out for the final game against England. "That was very disappointing," he says. Fifteen players lose an international match and the selectors decide to make just one change.

Such implicit criticism could easily fire a lively imagination, but McCall is nothing if, not firmly rooted. He needed to be. Another selectorial omission last season would have" put the cap on it. Having played against England, he was subsequently left out of the squad of 30 contracted players. That may soon change, but dropping from such a height always unsettles the stomach.

"My dad, in particular, has been more disappointed than I have been over the years when things haven't gone the way I wanted. I've always been on the fringe, but I've never really been close to being a fixture at all. I've probably got more A caps than anybody else. I mean I've been on the A team since 1990."

Last year he was forced to play out-half for Ulster, a position he can fill but where, by his own admission, he would find it difficult to excel at international level. David Humphreys was at Oxford and Ulster had a hole to fill. McCall was not happy, but he could see the problem. His club also wanted him at out-half.

"I've no doubt that I couldn't play out-half at this level. I know that. I don't think that at the top level I would be happy with my kicking. Last year I played there, which meant that I wasn't playing any of the big games at centre. That didn't help me. Basically, I spent a season in the wilderness. I'm really an inside centre."

Last week McCall, along with Maurice Field, left Ravenhill in the knowledge that they had competed with the top centres in the game. McCall faced Tim Horan. Three years ago, Horan was the best centre in the world. A horrific injury shattered his knee and in reality his invincibility was damaged too, but Horan is still the best Australia have.

McCall will face him again today in greatly different circumstances. A more powerful microscope will be placed over Lansdowne Road and the dissection after the match will be more painful for those who allow the occasion to pass them by.

"Sometimes playing the likes of Australia is easier than playing sides such as Fiji or Western Samoa where expectation is much higher. Playing against Australia is not the worst game to play in to establish yourself. I regard it as crucial from a personal point of view, and from a team point of view the players feel that they owe the public after what happened against Western Samoa."

McCall has shown in less auspicious contests this season that he has an eye for a break and a jink. No longer, though, is the one-off cap sufficient for him. It's not acceptable.

"Getting back in is one thing and it's great. But I'd be a lot happier to establish myself as a fixture. I don't regard it as enough just to get back in. People who know me are happy I'm in, but deep down they know I

want to stay there for a while."

Roll on Horan and Daniel Herbert. Everybody knows that size isn't everything.