Corkery fails to make squad

A 31-man Irish squad has been picked ostensibly for next Wednesday's planned session at the ALSAA complex at Dublin airport, though it will most probably be the squad from which both the team to play Scotland and ensuing Five Nations selections will be based.

Viewed in that light, there will be some disappointed Irish players both at home and abroad. The most notably of these will probably be the Bristol pair of David Corkery and Paul Burke. Less surprisingly, there is no place for Mick Galwey, despite the inclusion of five locks.

Corkery, it should be remembered, was Ireland's player of the year in his debut season of 199495 which culminated in a strong showing at the World Cup. He was also a leading light of the 1996 campaign and again at the start of last season but he probably sacrificed his selection for the Lions when playing with a broken hand in Ireland's obliteration by Scotland. Remarkably, that still constitutes the last of his 21 caps.

Now recovered from injury, Corkery has been watched twice by Brian Ashton himself in the past month and presumably therefore, is still not firing on all cylinders. Admittedly, were any of the existing six back-row men in the squad (all of whom have played for Ireland this season) injured, then Corkery would probably be next in line.

However, as Pat Whelan is currently on holidays abroad, the release of the 31-man squad came without official comment or explanation. In one of the Union's and the manager's less obvious examples of free speech, Ashton is contractually obliged to say nothing about team or squad selections.

Even allowing for Corkery, and to a lesser extent Burke, Galwey and others (the in-form pair of Niall Woods and Justin Bishop), the squad falls along predictable lines and contains the bulk of those fully contracted and non-contracted players who were regularly attending the sessions before Christmas.

Fully fit and scoring freely, Conor O'Shea returns to the fold after missing the three early season internationals with a broken hand. Another in-form try scorer, Richard Wallace, also returns; as does Jonathan Bell and Conor McGuinness, while the Bath second-row Brian Cusack is a fifth lock.

Nick Popplewell has been included though is unlikely to attend because of a hamstring injury. All those players whose clubs are scheduled to have midweek Cup fixtures have also been named, despite the threat from Saracens that they would not release the Wallace brothers and Paddy Johns.

Saracens' Richard Hill has been exempted to play for his club, but he is an exception as, it appears, Saracens and others have been obliged to back down given these Home Union squad sessions were planned and announced last August.

Interestingly, only three centres have been included in the squad and Ashton has revised his plans this coming Saturday to take in a friendly between Bristol and Orrel so as to run the rule of the former's outside centre Adam Larkin, a highly rated New Zealander who holds an Irish passport, and ascertain his interest in declaring for Ireland.

Barry O'Driscoll will attend the Waterloo-Rotherham game, and John O'Driscoll will watch Northampton versus Sale for the Irish management while at home Donal Lenihan, Mike Ruddock and Jim Glennon will run the rule over the St Mary's-Clontarf, Cork ConShannon and Ballymena-Dungannon games.

On the domestic front, the inform Garryowen pair of Stephen McIvor and Andrew Bermingham have recovered from injury and are selected in a side to play Terenure which shows just one change - the return of Jack Clarke on the wing - from that which accounted for Blackrock.

Blackrock themselves welcome back two of their former Irish schools' contingent, David Quinlan and Leo Cullen. However, the unavailability of locks John Ryan (virus) and Danny Casey means that Cullen must return in a more unfamiliar second-row berth.