Defensive Irish clean up their act

Away from the madding crowds, the Irish World Cup preparations continue apace. Double sessions each day in Cork this week were augmented at Temple Hill yesterday by the presence of a TV crew for a washing-up commercial, and by a rugby league coach to work on defensive organisation. What you might call, an earner and a learner.

Meanwhile, the Irish team to play Munster in the penultimate World Cup warm-up match was also selected yesterday, and unsurprisingly shows a dozen changes from the team which beat Argentina last Saturday week by 32-24.

Only Conor O'Shea, (in the absence of the unfortunate Girvan Dempsey), Matt Mostyn and Jeremy Davidson are retained. Basically, there's a game for everyone in these two matches bar Justin Fitzpatrick, who came on during the Argentinean game, and Bob Casey, who is one of nine subs for Friday evening's meeting with Munster in Musgrave Park.

The net result is that three of Munster's Irish contingent will face up to their provincial team-mates, namely Mike Mullins, Brian O'Meara and David Corkery, whose blind-side set-to with Alan Quinlan may give the lie to the notion of it being a friendly, not that Munster v anyone falls into that category. Munster select today.

"It's a practice match as far as we're concerned," said Donal Lenihan. "We want to see different combinations because as we've said, there will be different teams in the World Cup and therefore we felt we had to give everybody a game."

Hence, the likes of Brian O'Meara, Ross Nesdale and Kieron Dawson get only their second start of the season. Peter Clohessy, Paddy Johns and Trevor Brennan are resting a few bumps and bruises. Paul Wallace has "improved dramatically" and should be fit to play against Ulster on Sunday week, in a selection that is likely to revert pretty much to the line-up which played Argentina.

Lenihan also confirmed that the decision to replace Dempsey will be made later in the week and that it will rest between Gordon D'Arcy and Simon Mason.

All week, the squad have been continuing their fitness programmes in the morning, and training at Temple Hill in the afternoon, a pattern to be continued today and tomorrow. "We're certainly working way harder than we ever would in the week of a Test match," added Lenihan.

However, Lenihan expressed the management's concern about some of their players' "unacceptable" performances in the recent round of interprovincials, primarily "a lot of the Leinster players who we felt didn't perform to the level we would have liked on Friday night. We've made that known to them."

Lenihan recalled his own experiences as a player in a similar build-up to the 1991 World Cup, when observing "the minute a squad is announced, players take a backward step thinking they've arrived. We want them to see that as a starting point, and their goal now is to get on the team."

While a dirty half-dozen joined a cast of all-black extras on the back pitch, taking a leaf out of the English and Australian books, (both of whom have full-time defensive coaches brought in from rugby league, namely Phil Larder and John Muggleton) the rest of the squad went through some defensive work with David Miles, currently assistant coach to both Wigan and Great Britain.

"Rugby league defence is a huge part of their game," explained Lenihan. "He can have a look at what we are doing and make observations about the way we defend and the defensive formation we use."

"Obviously there's different situations in our game," Miles himself said afterwards. "It's a lot more mixed in that forwards and backs mingle a lot more, whereas here there tends to be a lot more set play. That's the biggest difference, and also our teams are 10 metres apart, whereas in a ruck they might only be two or three metres apart."

Resulting from this, Miles cites a bigger emphasis in rugby union on making tackles beyond the gain line. "On the edges, we don't tend to come up as quick. So what we do is wait and see what happens, whereas in rugby union you try and get up and tackle people behind the advantage line, and sometimes that can mean you make the wrong decision."

Miles concentrated primarily on match situations and "what happens when things aren't in your favour, when they have more attackers than you have defenders. Mainly it's talk and communication. I think that's the difference between rugby league and rugby union. If you went to a rugby league game, players yell and scream for 80 minutes, whereas in rugby union it quite often tends to be a lot quieter. I don't know whether it's because it's a gentleman's game or not."

Ireland XV (v Munster): C O'Shea; J Topping, J bell, M Mullins, M Mostyn; E Elwood, B O'Meara; R Corrigan, R Nesdale, A McKeen, J Davidson, M O'Kelly, D Corkery, E Miller, K Dawson. Replacements: K Wood, J Fitzpatrick, R Casey, D O'Cuinneagain, A Ward, T Tierney, D Humphreys, K Maggs, J Bishop.