Gatland's juggling to continue

Aside from attempting to trim yesterday's 44-man squad to around 30 for next week's two-day get-together, the Irish management were also trying to transfer those international squad sessions to Limerick in the light of Munster having clinched a European Cup quarter-final the following weekend, be it home or away.

One imagines that the Munster management still won't be doing cartwheels over this minor concession to their international squad members next week, but at least it will lighten their travelling. The flip side is that were Leinster also to reach the quarter-finals by beating Biarritz next Saturday evening, prior to their return from France on Sunday night, they will then have an additional travelling load.

Due to the timing of the Six Nations opener away to Italy in Rome on February 3rd, there's no easy answer. Clearly, the quarterfinal preparations of Munster, and perhaps Leinster, will be undermined, given they won't come together again until Wednesday and will therefore only have one-and-a-half days of meaningful training. While acknowledging that this was not ideal all round, Warren Gatland was a little peeved by perceived criticisms of disruptions to the provinces' preparations. "Can someone come up with a better alternative that helps our preparations. We've got a Test match in a few weeks and theoretically players involved could be in a quarter-final (involving Leinster). We don't know when that will be - it could be a Sunday, the day we're trying to assemble. We fly out on the final Tuesday and won't be able to train that day; we could end up with just two or three sessions, and look at the problems that we've had with injuries."

The squad having been trimmed to around 30 for next week's get-together, the Irish management will then pick 22-man squads at both senior and A level for the Italian games.

Yesterday's session was severely disrupted by the overnight freeze, which left the pitches at the ALSAA complex by Dublin Airport unusuable, forcing a cancellation of the morning's session (save for a few line-outs and bit of handling by the backs) and re-routing of the afternoon work-out to Suttonians' ground.

"We still got a reasonable amount done," said Gatland on returning to the squad's base in the Posthouse Dublin Airport Hotel. "We focused on things we had been working on, like lines of running, ball presentation and continuity. The hardest thing has been that we haven't had the consistency of having everyone on the pitch the whole time. Today was like a new starting point."

Monday Irish get-togethers also wouldn't be the same if there weren't the usual litany of walking wounded on the sidelines. Ten players took little or no part, David Humphreys (knee and calf), Geordan Murphy (stomach bug), Tyrone Howe (flu), Emmet Byrne (thumb), Denis Hickie (broken hand), Malcolm O'Kelly (dead leg), Shane Horgan (strained ankle), Paul Burke (broken arm), Justin Fitzpatrick (dead leg), David Wallace (bruised biceps) and Frankie Sheahan whose grandmother passed away on Saturday.

Furthermore, John Hayes (rib) and Justin Fitzpatrick (dead leg) picked up minor knocks which curtailed their involvement. Horgan's injury is the most worrying, especially with Leinster's impending win-or-bust mission to Biarritz in mind.

However, the one injury over the weekend which did have serious ramifications for Rome and for the subsequent home game against France was, of course, Hickie's (which made his stupendous try-saving tackle on Craig Joiner all the better). An automatic selection for sure, in prime form, there really is no direct replacement for him. "He's playing well and the one thing he has is genuine pace, which is always hard to replace, and he's playing with a lot of confidence."

Most probably the enforced adjustment will mean Shane Horgan being restored to the right-wing position from which he scored tries in Tests last season, with the retention of the Rob Henderson-Brian O'Driscoll partnership in midfield. The latter again performed well, watched by the Irish management in the Wasps-Swansea game on Sunday, completing another triple whammy in one weekend for the management who also watched Swansea's South African-born Irish recruit, centre Shaun Payne.

Only two more weeks then of juggling their watching brief and the players' training time - and keeping their fingers crossed.