A bizarre week but all too believable

A bizarre week, perhaps even unprecedented, if maybe not quite grotesque and certainly not unbelievable. Little about Irish rugby is unbelievable anymore. In fact, stumbling upon some old cuttings from various stages of the 90s, the headings were almost of Groundhog Day proportions.

"Ireland Hit Rock Bottom", "Ireland Sink To New Low" etc, etc. The postscripts were equally scathing, and the coaches were usually the scapegoats copping the flak.

The sense of unease about the slow retreat from Twickenham was a little different in one significant way. Although it was Ireland's ninth record hiding in nine years, it was the first hiding of Warren Gatland's tenure. If nothing else, Gatland's Ireland didn't roll over and have their bellies tickled. They were competitive and come Saturday, hopefully, will be again given Gatland has admitted his tampering with the defensive system at Twickenham was a mistake.

Then came the Frankie Sheahan affair, the Union's initially muddled and then unusually swift handling of it, a significantly changed Irish squad, and, perhaps most bizarrely of all, the timing of Donal Lenihan's appointment as Lions' manager.

He and Gatland were even mildly rebuked for not attending the midweek Lansdowne-St Mary's AIL game while picking the Irish squad for the Scotland game that night. Given the awfulness of the game, this seemed one of the most sensible decisions they ever made.

As one former international in attendance put it, imagine if Ireland did make 11 changes for the Scottish game, then if that didn't work they could make another 11 for the Italian game and so on. "By the end of the season, virtually everyone on that pitch (last Wednesday) would have played for Ireland by the end of the season." A sobering thought indeed.

Taking it a step further, if we ask ourselves how many Irish players would make a Lions' squad of 34 or so, picked today, the answer would be one (Keith Wood), maybe two (Brian O'Driscoll), and three at a push (Jeremy Davidson if fit, or maybe Malcolm O'Kelly, if back to his best).

Of course, all that could change if Ireland extracted a couple of wins from the remainder of the season. Suddenly there might be six or seven in the running. But for the time being the pickings are slim and one's sympathy for the Irish management wasn't diluted by the weekend's club fare.

Sod's law decreed that Conor O'Shea returned to London Irish and scored a couple of tries to cement his standing as the leading try scorer in the Allied Dunbar. It also decreed that Donal Lenihan should see Girvan Dempsey's relatively worrying lack of true form continue on the same pitch that Mike Mullins was doing his Christian Cullen thing at full back.

Not that that has much relevance to next Saturday at Lansdowne Road, for Mullins wasn't tested as he would be at Test level. There might have been some consolation in seeing Eric Miller last 80 minutes for the third weekend in a row - a first this season - and while his gradual return to health and form is encouraging, he still hasn't given a full 80 minute performance like he can do.

Meantime, Eddie O'Sullivan decamped to Ballymena and saw Ronan O'Gara, the debutant out-half in waiting, have a nightmare while down the road in Dungannon David Humphreys was kicking seven out of seven. Just as an aside, sod's law also decreed that the demoted Dion O'Cuinneagain had a blinder.

Moving on to Sunday, Warren Gatland was treated to a scrum-half showdown in which Tom Tierney arguably did the basics better than Peter Stringer, who did at least clear the ball away swiftly amid a mixed bag of an afternoon.

THE plot sickened with Kevin Maggs's withdrawal and the doubts over Justin Bishop. As a service to the nation, the out-of-luck management could give us their 18 combined lottery numbers, so as to leave the rest of us with just 24 winnable options.

What to make of it all? Well, with fingers crossed, the management will probably go for Girvan Dempsey at full back and, on a wing and a prayer, Dennis Hickie on the left and Bishop, if fit, on the right. If not Bishop, and with James Topping, Niall Woods and Geordan Murphy all contracting Geogheganitis, then the next on the conveyor belt from the ranks of the As are, er, Sheldon Coulter or Tyrone Howe, both of whom were mostly kept out of the Ulster team this season.

Other options are Dempsey to the wing, with Mike Mullins at full back, or Gordon D'Arcy, or John McWeeney, or even John Kelly. Whatever happened to Darragh O'Mahony? Last seen, he was side-stepping around Kenny Logan, encouragingly enough, at Loftus Road last Saturday. Not the quickest or the best defender in the world, though not the slowest or the worst either, he's still a good footballer and a decent finisher. Surely he's the best of the alternatives.

A hunch says the Mullins-Brian O'Driscoll ticket is retained in midfield, and though neither Stringer nor O'Gara made compelling returns after three weeks on the sidelines with injuries, as the season's form ticket, the main thing was getting a game under their belts. Sooner or later, their time will come and maybe it will be sooner.

Up front, Peter Clohessy might be switched to tight-head, with Justin Fitzpatrick given his chance, as the reservations about John Hayes's scrummaging remain. Otherwise Paul Wallace has either drunk at the last chance saloon or will be doing so on Saturday.

Jeremy Davidson will probably return for Bob Casey, while in the back row it's a case of perming two from four alongside Kieron Dawson. Though a suspicion lurks that Miller might be more suited to a fast and furious game with the Scots, Anthony Foley mightn't be jettisoned after one game, and, strictly speaking, it should be Trevor Brennan's turn again ahead of Simon Easterby.

Again though, a suspicion lurks that, rather than the latter, O'Cuinneagain would be more suited to the impact role sometime in the last half-hour.

In the heel of the hunt, the team could read something like this (or could conceivably be up to nine names wide of the mark): Dempsey; Hickie, O'Driscoll, Mullins, Bishop or O'Mahony; O'Gara, Stringer; Clohessy, Wood, Wallace, Davidson, O'Kelly, Brennan, Foley, Dawson.