Ireland in desperate need of a good win

BOTH FOR themselves and for the public, Ireland need to put last week's embarrassing loss against Munster behind them by playing well and winning well against Ulster at Queen's tomorrow. To a degree, their credibility is on the line.

Undoubtedly in these in-house preparatory games Ireland have more to lose than to gain and if they kept something in reserve for the World Cup they wouldn't be the only international side to do so. But there's also more of an edge to these matches than, say, an all-star match, which are bigger on hype than they are on substance even if England, say, have looked inestimably slicker in their build-up.

There is no question that Ulster will be wired up and fired up. A host of their European Cup winning crew are back on board, and in some instances they've been overlooked for contracts as well as Irish places this season. This, therefore, is their big, and perhaps only, chance to make a point. No less than Munster, Ulster will have marked this one down in their diary for a while as their Test match of the season.

Then to compound things, he gets to play for Leinster against Argentina and Ireland against Munster. Lucky fellow.

Dawson's selection for this match could have a double benefit: it gives him another badly needed outing, and it should boost his confidence in that it will probably be in a winning team and therefore he'll have a chance to show his talents going forward.

Declan Kidney played it cute in the build-up to the Munster match last week, and thus Harry Williams's softly, softly approach perhaps should be taken with a drop of salt as well.

"There's no pressure on us to achieve a result," said the Ulster coach, which is undoubtedly true, before adding more dubiously: "the result is of no significance".

However, another of their own, namely O'Cuinneagain, knows exactly what to expect: "a very physical challenge. It is their Test match of the year and I expect them to be flying at us. Which is why we will need to be very accurate".

In what is likely to be a more open and fluid game than last week's, Ireland have the playmakers (David Humphreys and Brian O'Driscoll) to be considerably more expansive as well. Ireland should both play and win comfortably.

Furthermore, there's liable to be an even more partisan crowd in attendance for this very reason, besides which the exclusion of the Ulster favourite Simon Mason from the Irish squad will undoubtedly add a certain amount of spice to proceedings. Even without their octet of World Cup squad members, there's a strong core of Ulster's European Cup winning side playing - seven of the starting line-up which played against Colomiers and 14 of the final squad. Ulster's scrum may not even be that much weakened, given Richie Weir is a bulkier hooker than the injured Allen Clarke, while the back five are the same quintet as last season save for Andy Ward.

Nonetheless, Ulster's scrum was never their strength anyway, whereas Ireland's is and it ought to give them a real edge.

Indeed, pretty much all of Ireland's big players and leaders have been unleashed for this game. In essence, it is the team which nearly beat Australia in Perth and played Argentina off the pitch for an hour.

More pertinently, it is probably the bulk of the team that will play the USA in two weeks. Hence, Dion O'Cuinneagain was surely reflecting the thoughts of the Irish management when he said the team's targets was "an accurate performance, whereby our first phases go well, and we have good movements off the line-outs and our scrums are good and fluid".

The Irish captain also wants to see "good ball retention. We've done a lot of work on our rucking during the week and we'd like to see that being effective in the match. Taking the right options in the game would be one of my goals as well as the team's; making sure we assess the situations right and get the right options from that".

As an addendum, albeit an important one, O'Cuinneagain added: "it would be great to see one or two of the supposed second team lift the standard of their performance."

For sure, the collective is the more important thing this week. It should help Ireland's performance that so many in the team are established front-line players and that they are more cohesive than the relative joblot assembled at Musgrave Park last week.

Nonetheless, the bulk of that losing side will be a tad envious that Malcolm O'Kelly, David Corkery and Kieron Dawson have been retained for this game. Though Corkery didn't quite continue his strong start in Cork, he's had a good run of form in a winning Munster side and is probably pushing Trevor Brennan harder than ever for that blindside flanker slot.

By contrast, even before last Friday, O'Kelly had suffered with several other Leinster players in what might be called a malfunctioning cause. He's not the type of player who turns games around, but in a strong Irish side playing well, and taking the game into third phase and beyond, he comes into his own. He's a bit of an enigma too, who requires his own handling and so promotion to the starting XV ought to help. O'Kelly is due a big one and the indications from training are that it will come tomorrow.

You'd feel even sorrier for Dawson. Thrown into the Development/A tour of New Zealand, he won his three caps towards the end of the Ashton era, and has been recalled at a time when he cannot be fully fit.