Getting some sleep for the long haul

NEW ZEALAND DIARY:SLEEPING PATTERNS are a major topic of discussion in the opening days of a tour to the Southern Hemisphere and especially New Zealand, as the longest haul of all. Sleep is a commodity for the players and the more they start missing it, the more they start panicking about missing it. Some acclimatise quicker than others.

One player admits that on his last tour to New Zealand, fully a week later on the day of the first Test he woke at 2.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep. The kick-off was at 7.30pm that night. It made for a long day.

THE IRISH squad had a 4.45am wake-up call last Saturday morning, which meant most had little or no sleep that night, especially those who had played against the Barbarians, before embarking upon a door-to-door journey of 31 and a half hours.

But referee George Clancy can top that, for he put his journey to Suva, where he will be refereeing the Pacific Nations Cup match between Fiji and Japan on Saturday, at 40 hours. Setting off by car from Limerick with his wife Evelyn at 4.00 on Saturday, we left them in Auckland airport at 2.30pm local time on Monday.

They still had a couple of hours to wait for their fourth flight, a modest two hours, of their epic journey to Suva via Dublin, Abu Dhabi, Sydney and Auckland. It was while checking his flight map aboard his Air Etihad flight that Clancy made an interesting discovery – he would have been quicker to go the other way, ie head west not east. Clancy will complete his season when taking charge of the All Blacks v Wales first Test in Dunedin on Saturday week.

DECLAN KIDNEY’S first tour as a coach was an Irish schools tour to New Zealand in 1992. The Irish team wasn’t a bad vintage, captained as it was by James Blaney and featuring Jeremy Davidson, Anthony Foley, Conor McGuinness and Jonathan Bell, amongst others. Then again, the Kiwi schoolboys they came up against in the tour finale weren’t too bad either, and had amongst their ranks some bloke called Jonah Lomu, Carlos Spencer, Jeff Wilson and Trevor Leota.

Ireland were winning until a home town late penalty enabled the New Zealand Schools to win a thrilling match 29-27. The venue? New Plymouth.

ON THE day the All Blacks announced three new caps in the starting XV and six in the squad of 22, another notable landmark was reached, which prompted the following ditty toward Graham Henry: “Will you still meet me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64? “I don’t feel 64,” said Henry thoughtfully, and then smiled when adding: “though I look about 84 I guess.”

“When Jimmy (Cowan) stood up and told us it was his birthday he actually said he was 65 so there were a few quips going around about his pension,” chuckled Richie McCaw.

NOT THE least interesting aspect of Saturday’s Test is the presence of Wayne Barnes as referee. The English official will be refereeing his first match in New Zealand since he became Public Enemy Number One in the fall-out from the All Blacks’ World Cup quarter-final defeat to France in Cardiff almost three years ago.

In truth, the reaction to Barnes’ performance was over the top, for compared to the referee the All Blacks were more the authors of their own downfall on that memorable night. Admittedly, Damien Traille’s pass out of the tackle to Frederic Michalak in the build-up to Yannick Jauzion’s try was forward, and late on it looked as if there was one compelling case for an All Blacks penalty, but those misses were more the fault of his assistants than Barnes. This week it’s been the elephant in the room, with the All Blacks making a determined effort to play down the presence of Barnes. “We have got to move on from things like that and whatever happened in the past,” said captain Richie McCaw on Tuesday.

“To me it is not an issue at all.”