O'Connell takes on captain's role

Rugby News: As coups go, it was a very Munster coup. Paul O'Connell will henceforth assume the captaincy of the European champions from Anthony Foley, and on the face of it this should be a very smooth transition from one outstanding leader to another. The team having reached the promised land, fresh challenges also make it look well timed.

Foley, much to his and the Munster squad's own mirth, was first pipped for the province's captaincy by Jim Williams on a second count after a dead heat in a ballot among the squad. This time, according to Declan Kidney, there was more of a consultative process, with the squad nominating O'Connell, Foley and Ronan O'Gara before a decision was reached, as much by the three men as by the collective.

Foley and O'Gara will be vice-captains and O'Connell is the first to concede he has some tough acts to follow.

"It's a massive honour," he said yesterday. "When Gaillimh (Mick Galwey) did it for whatever, seven or eight years, it became a position of honour. Whereas before it changed every year. Jim (Williams) then came in and did it, then Axel (Foley) came in and did it - three outstanding captains and three real leaders."

No less than Foley before him, O'Connell is not a church mouse in team meetings, the dressing-room or on the pitch, and he will have plenty of experienced lieutenants around him. In that sense, not a whole lot will change although now they have a new starting point.

"For the last few years we've been travelling along the same lines, trying to win the Heineken Cup," says O'Connell.

Apart from some underage rugby, O'Connell's experience of captaining sides has been limited to a couple of outings for Munster last season, and twice for Ireland, though as the second of those games underlined - when he captained Ireland in Murrayfield two seasons ago - he is a natural-born leader.

Six of Munster's test frontliners are available for the seasonal reappearance this coming Saturday evening against Ulster in Musgrave Park: Marcus Horan, O'Connell, David Wallace, Donncha O'Callaghan, Peter Stringer and Ronan O'Gara.

There would have been another two but for Denis Leamy picking up a hamstring strain during the international mini-camp last week and John Hayes sustaining an ankle injury.

John Kelly and Anthony Horgan look like recovering from an Achilles strain and a badly bruised hand.

"We now have a five-week period back together," said Kidney in reference to just three league games before their opening European Cup matches, away to Leicester and at home to Bourgoin, "and we have to make the most of that."

Ulster will be strengthened by the seasonal reappearance of Tommy Bowe, Andrew Trimble and Neil Best, while Leinster expect to have Brian O'Driscoll, Shane Horgan and Girvan Dempsey back in harness, and possibly Gordon D'Arcy too, while Luke Fitzgerald should shake off the back spasm he sustained against Llanelli.

They will, however, be without Robert Kearney, who has pulled a hamstring, for several weeks.