RUGBY IRISH TRAINING CAMP:IRELAND COACH Declan Kidney yesterday highlighted the competition for places in the Irish backrow.

There may have been more than a hint of diplomacy and discretion in that, in listing runners, he gave prominence to Ulster’s Stephen Ferris. After all, Kidney was speaking in Belfast where some of Ireland’s brightest young rugby talent has assembled for the first of the season’s senior training camps.

The curtain-raiser is being staged at the University of Ulster and Newforge, the latter being Ulster Rugby’s training base. And Ferris, by virtue of a telling contribution to the British and Irish Lions’ recent injury-curtailed mission in South Africa, currently is the darling of the Ulster faithful whose big fear is that they may lose him to bidders with bigger budgets and ambitions, to say nothing of greater potential when it comes to winning honours.

After all, another of those Kidney identified in the battle for places in Ireland’s backrow was Neil Best, who left Ulster for Northampton Saints.

And with former Ulster winger-centre, Tommy Bowe, who played for the Lions in all three of the Tests against South Africa, having exited Belfast last summer in pursuit of the greener pastures of Ospreys, it is understandable that those in the north become somewhat jittery any time the names of their prize assets crop up in rugby conversation.

Difficult to hide the crown jewels, though.

Kidney, however, was keen to stress that training camps like the one in Belfast are designed, among other things, to build momentum within the squad, examine options and give newcomers a chance to impress.

This time they have a better opportunity than usual to do that, for with Ireland’s Lions not yet ready to return to the fray following their exertions in South Africa, a number of young players who would not otherwise have been included this week find themselves being offered a chance to shine under the spotlight.

Post-South Africa the Lions have been entitled to four weeks holidays – which, in Kidney’s words “everybody would know they need after the rigours of such a tour” – followed by seven of pre-season training. It will be late September before they are available to participate in competitive action therefore, thus the vacancies for underlings at this stage.

Not that the chances have been limited solely to Churchill Cup-winning starlets and the like; witness the involvement of the well-past-fledgling-stage Paddy Wallace and Shane Horgan.

As Kidney put it: “It’s a continuation of what we’ve been doing. May and June were hugely informative in terms of the tours to America and the Churchill Cup.

“And we’ve been able to bring some guys back in, like Paddy Wallace and Shane Horgan who didn’t do either tour for different reasons.

“So it’s about combining that bit of experience with those guys who went well on the tours.”

Explaining what will happen when the top-notch performers return, he continued: “When the Lions come back in, some of the players at this camp may have to step down.

“But this is their chance to put their hand up and say ‘I’ve been going well so don’t forget me if I don’t make the cut for the next one’. And we certainly won’t.”

At the end of his brief encounter with the media his round-it-up sound-bite was an echo of what he has been telling some of his older players: “We plan for the future, but we play for the now.”

Which keeps a lot of options open and, more significantly, a lot of players – from both ends of the age scale – on board.