Kidney has one foot in Lions den

RUGBY:AFTER ONE of the worst kept secrets doing the rugby rounds – even the dogs in O'Connell Street, and that's any O'Connell Street, know the shortlist from which the next Lions' head coach will be chosen – Declan Kidney yesterday somewhat reluctantly confirmed his name is in the mix.

“I got a phone call about it, so I just said ‘yeah’,” admitted Kidney at the Irish squad’s base this week in Limerick’s Strand Hotel.

“Anyone would be interested in going on the Lions but that’s it. I’m more interested in beating Wales in two weeks’ time. That’s the only thing I’m thinking about.”

Given Warren Gatland and Scotland’s Andy Robinson are on that shortlist, it is an interesting little sub-plot to that Six Nations opener against Wales at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday week, and when asked if he had expressed a specific interest, Kidney repeated: “You don’t say no to something like that, but at the same time I’m not chasing it. I’m very happy where I am.”

Kidney also confirmed Gert Smal, as reported in The Irish Timeslast week, would be remaining with Ireland as forwards coach.

The Springboks’ World Cup-winning forwards coach of 2007 had been widely touted to succeed Pieter de Villiers as South African head coach, a position which SARU are due to fill on Friday.

Confirming he had spoken to Smal, Kidney said: “Gert’s that type of man, you’d be speaking to him from the very start. No, Gert will be with us.

“Gert’s contract goes to June 12 months, and he’ll be with us for at least the duration of that contract.”

Newly installed Ireland manager Mick Kearney confirmed Leo Cullen flew to a specialist in Stockholm yesterday to have his Achilles tendons operated on.

Cullen will thus be sidelined for “six to eight weeks” which leaves him in a race against time to lead Leinster against Cardiff in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

The uncapped Munster number eight James Coughlan was promoted to the squad in his stead.

Kidney confirmed he will be announcing a 30-man squad next Monday for the opening two matches, such is the swift turnaround for the games against Wales and France in Paris just six days later, and the likelihood is at least seven of the Wolfhounds’ squad to face the Saxons in Exeter this Saturday will be promoted ahead of the six additional young players who are part of this week’s training camp as well as Coughlan.

As for Luke Fitzgerald and the “cricked neck” which has now sidelined him for four weeks, the Irish management are “hopeful” he will be able to resume training next week.

Jonathan Sexton “did about 80 per cent of the session yesterday” and expects to be fully recovered from his ankle strain by the end of the week.

This will be the first campaign without Brian O’Driscoll since the old Five Nations in 1999, and Kidney conceded: “You don’t lose one of the best players in the world and it not have an effect on and off pitch.”

But while they would be remaining in contact, there were no plans for him to have a direct role.

“He’s given everything to the team – and in future he’ll do so again. He knows someone has to come in and fill that 13 shirt, (and) sometimes by having him around that would make it harder.”

Another significant change sees Les Kiss assume a bigger role by combining his duties as defensive coach with that of backs coach in tandem with kicking coach Mark Tainton and video analyst Mervyn Murphy.

“I wouldn’t say we’re changing our style a great deal,” said Kiss. “To tell you the truth, 80-90 per cent of it will be the same. We just want to add a few more layers. We only have six sessions (before the Welsh game) and to create something grand and new would be wrong. There’s some subtle shifts, and we’ll work hard to get that right, but you’re talking about maybe adding 10 per cent to it.”

For the first time, the entire squad have been part of successful Heineken Cup qualifying campaigns. Hailing the “fantastic results” of the provinces, including Connacht’s first win, Kidney deduced that Irish rugby “must be getting a few things right”.

That said, he played a straight to bat to questions about the IRFU’s controversial new rulings regarding foreign players.

“I’ve lost a bit of hair over the last 10 or 12 years dealing with different things, you just learn to deal with it.”

Nor, Kidney maintained, would the provinces’ Euro campaigns heighten the pressure on Ireland to deliver in the Six Nations.

“We’ve had years where lads would come in and we had one team qualified – and you could always spot the fellas in the team room who had qualified and those who didn’t.

“Now we have three teams. I would say they were probably emotionally drained this morning. But as regards pressure, not at all. It’s brilliant to have them coming in like this. The pressure is there all the time, you just work away with that and to have them come in, in the frame of mind they’re in, is brilliant.”

Nonetheless, expectation levels have been heightened and he did concede that “playing at home first puts a certain onus on you to hit the ground running”.