Irish players unavailable for Barbarians

Barbarians v South AfricaNo Irish player will be released for the Barbarians squad to play South Africa in London on December 1st despite Eddie O'Sullivan being the coach.

The IRFU informed the Barbarians committee last August of the unavailability of centrally contracted players. Reacting to a newspaper article yesterday that stated Brian O'Driscoll would captain the side, a joint Leinster and Munster statement reiterated this stance by ruling out O'Driscoll, Paul O'Connell or any players from their "selected squads" for the exhibition match against the world champions.

Munster host Leinster the night before in the Magners Celtic League and round three of the Heineken European Cup takes place the following weekend when Edinburgh visit the RDS and Munster travel to Llanelli. The IRFU confirmed O'Sullivan accepted the position months ago, before the Munster v Leinster fixture had been announced. In his absence, assistant Irish coach Niall O'Donovan will attend Musgrave Park.

The Barbarians look likely to be without representatives from the English Premiership, while Scottish and Welsh clubs could take a similar line, leaving O'Sullivan's team largely made up of Southern Hemisphere players.

"Playing one-off fixtures like that in the season isn't feasible," said English Premier Rugby CEO Mark McCafferty.

The Barbarians squad includes the retired Jason Robinson (doubtful because of injury) along with Australians Matt Giteau, Rocky Elsom and Stephen Larkham while Martyn Williams, Jerry Collins and Sitiveni Sivivatu's images have been in the pre-match advertising and they are expected to play.

South Africa may also be a shadow of the team that won the World Cup final as Os Du Randt and Bobby Skinstad have retired, while a number of players, including captain John Smit, have taken up lucrative contracts in France and England.

Smit arrived at Clermont-Auvergne last Saturday and could feature against Llanelli this weekend. Percy Montgomery has linked up with Perpignan, Butch James has moved to Bath while Victor Matfield joins George Gregan, Andrew Mehrtens, Anton Oliver and coach Tana Umaga at French club, Toulon.