Bishop gambit only strategic surprise

RUGBY: Eight changes from the win over Fiji but more pertinently, just one enforced change from the team which beat Australia for this Saturday's renewal of acquaintance with Argentina, writes Gerry Thornley

This generated a minor surprise when the Irish management chose Justin Bishop ahead of Geordan Murphy to replace the absent Denis Hickie.

Murphy had been called in as 23rd man when Hickie's place against Australia had been in doubt because of a wrist injury, but it transpires that Bishop's performance on the left wing against Fiji last Sunday tipped the scales in his favour.

"It was a tight selection," admitted coach Eddie O'Sullivan, "but in this particular instance we decided to go with Bishy for this weekend. He had a very busy and solid game on the wing, and it would be hard to change it."

On the face of it, Murphy would appear to be more of a gamebreaker, as evidenced by eight tries in 11 Tests, albeit not always against Test opposition of the highest calibre. Then again, Bishop has won the last five of his 22 caps on the left wing, augmenting two tries against Argentina and one against Canada on the tour of the Americas three summers ago with another on Sunday.

Murphy's adaptability was not in question, O'Sullivan said, even allowing for the fact that Bishop has more experience of playing on the left wing than Murphy, whose appearances on the wing, like Shane Horgan, have all been on the right flank.

With everyone else fit and having beaten the world champions last time out, the rest of the selection meeting wouldn't have caused too many headaches.

"I suppose you'd have to give a vote of confidence to the team which started against Australia and did so well, so to be fair there wasn't too much discussion on any particular issue other than left wing," said the Irish coach.

For the record, Girvan Dempsey, Ronan O'Gara, Peter Stringer, Reggie Corrigan, Shane Byrne, Gary Longwell, Victor Costello and Keith Gleeson return to the side. The players who will thus have started all three "winter" internationals on successive weekends are the entire threequarter line - bar Hickie - John Hayes, Malcolm O'Kelly and Anthony Foley.

Nonetheless, as O'Sullivan conceded, fatigue is far more likely to affect the touring Argentinians than the home side, given their itinerary over the same three weekends has taken them from Buenos Aires to Dublin via Rome.

Ireland stand on the threshold of a minor bit of history on Saturday, when a sixth successive victory would equal the Irish record established in the late 60s. But it's not a goal which O'Sullivan is allowing to enter the collective thought process in the build-up.

"I wouldn't dwell on it because it's only a consequence of what you do on Saturday. Thinking about it isn't going to make it happen. If it happens then we'll dwell on it. It's like any record, it's an outcome, and it won't happen unless we make it happen, so I'm not even thinking about."

There should also be a whiff of cordite in the air given the Pumas have won the last two meetings, including the fairly seismic World Cup quarter-final play-off in Lens three years ago, as well as a 34-23 beating in Buenos Aires the following summer.

This is likely to be a far more relevant factor than a putative place in the record books, but again O'Sullivan played down its significance. "We're not into grudges, we're into playing rugby." When pressed further, he admitted: "Of course we've lost two games in a row to Argentina and I wouldn't like to go 0-and-3 against them, but just wanting that isn't enough. It doesn't happen because you want it. It's all about going out on Saturday, putting the appropriate game plan in place and executing it. That's both with and without the ball.

"So there's no point in getting hung up on what happened two years ago. Once the ball is kicked off at Lansdowne Road it's all about performance, and nobody is going to be thinking back to Lens. Getting hung up on that sort of stuff isn't going to help us. If anything it takes your mind off the job."

Argentina put the hapless Italians to the sword with a a five-try, 36-6 rout in Rome last Saturday, a performance which O'Sullivan described as excellent.

"Very difficult conditions. Very windy. A game of two halves. A lot of control up front, and once they broke Italy they really punished them. They've some good pace in the backs and they're a very accomplished team. I don't think anybody takes on Argentina now lightly, including New Zealand, or Australia, or England.

They're right up there."