Irish players avoid injury

No news constituted good news last night as far as the Irish management was concerned. As the squad came together in Finnstown House last night in advance of Saturday's Five Nations encounter with Wales, no injuries were reported arising out of the various weekend games involving squad members.

Several, such as Peter Clohessy, Andy Ward, David Humphreys and Jonathan Bell were rested in any case, and while Girvan Dempsey did depart injured during Terenure's defeat to Cork Constitution on Saturday, he sustained no more than a bruised hip.

Victor Costello also improves by the day. A final decision regarding the rib cartilage injury he sustained in the defeat to France last Saturday week will not be made until today or tomorrow.

"He's made progress and has a better than 50-50 chance," said manager Donal Lenihan Lenihan intimated that Costello may be included among the replacements when the team is announced tomorrow, resulting in Eric Miller switching to number eight and Dion O'Cuinneagain to the blind side to accommodate the return of Andy Ward at open-side.

The back-row permutation between the Test team, the replacements and the A squad (which has a vacancy at number six) has been complicated by Trevor Brennan's sending-off on Saturday during the St Mary's win over Shannon.

Lenihan will this morning seek to expedite the disciplinary hearing on the dismissal in order to clarify their options.

The squad will have a closed session in the grounds of Finnstown House today - the forwards will probably concentrate on scrummaging work - before having open sessions tomorrow and on Wednesday in Williamstown.

In an unprecedented break with tradition, the squad will depart early on Thursday to facilitate an additional session at Wembley on Thursday as well as Friday's standard run-out.

By comparison, Welsh centre Allan Bateman pulled a hamstring before half-time in Richmond's win over Sale yesterday. "I think you'll be lucky to see Allan in a Welsh shirt next Saturday," Richmond's director of rugby, John Kingston, said. But Kingston was more optimistic about Craig Quinnell's chances of recovering in time to return to the Welsh second-row.