Who will make Ireland World Cup squad: The Irish management are going all the way in search of the right mix, writes Gerry Thornley.

Michael Kiernan, then Ireland's record points scorer, learned of his last omission from an Irish squad when he heard it on the radio. No phone call. Nothing. And he never heard from an Irish manager, coach or selector again. There are many such tales but thankfully those days are over. Then again, there'll be about 14 Irish players dreading a personal phone call tomorrow morning.

One of the tasks Eddie O'Sullivan dreads the most, but also one of the tasks he places the greatest store by, is informing players when they've been dropped from teams or omitted from squads. Especially on the "why". No bull. Give it to them cogently and honestly. It's the best you can make of a nasty job.

He'll be up late tonight as he and others in the Irish management finalise that 30-man squad, and he'll be up early tomorrow to make sure those omitted learn of their fate and the rationale for it before they hear it on the grapevine. Ideally, he'd prefer to do it face to face, but logistically that's not possible.

Second guessing what that 30 might be is more difficult with Ireland than with the vast majority of the other 19 World Cup squads.

Bernard Laporte long since named his 30-man French squad and will be playing all but his two injured players in the warm-up games against England. O'Sullivan's counterpart in the final warm-up/trial game at Murrayfield today, Ian McGeechan, pruned his squad down to 32 before these preparatory games and, although dipping into the reserve pool this week, says he's only "two or three" places away from finalising Scotland's squad.

By contrast, O'Sullivan has maintained all along that he will use every last morsel of information about players' form and well-being right up until this evening, including Test matches and provincial games, before finalising his squad in advance of Tuesday's deadline.

Take this weekend. In addition to Ireland's game in Edinburgh, World Cup hopefuls were meeting in the Leinster v Munster and Neath/Swansea Ospreys v Ulster games last night, and O'Sullivan was keen not only for video information on these games but also that members of the Irish management would attend them. Declan Kidney was apparently heading to Edinburgh via The Gnoll in Neath last night, and Niall O'Donovan and Brian O'Brien were at Donnybrook.

"There'll at least be a video if not people at them. We're working on having people on the ground at those games and they will be part of management. I've said that those provincial games are important and I'll stand over that. If it's at all possible to have bodies on the ground looking at the games then we will," said O'Sullivan.

Accordingly, this week he was still saying: "We're probably two-thirds of the way there. That's 20 out of 30, so somewhere around that. In my own mind I've pencilled in about 20 guys but there's still a third up for grabs.

"There's decisions to be made with the front row, second row, back row, half-back, centre and back three. I think the thing that throws people the most is that I'm telling the truth here. I mean, I'm being totally honest," he says with a smile, knowing it invariably prompts quizzical looks.

"There's a lot of decisions to be finalised. It's great. People might think I decided on the squad about a month ago because I had x number of players and that was it. The fact that I've got to make very hard decisions on Saturday night is good for us, it's good for the team. They're hard decisions but better making those than writing down 30 names a month ago and let's hope everybody stays fit."

There aren't many guaranteed guidelines either. O'Sullivan's ideal squad selection, based on his utterings thus far, would appear to be a 16-14 split based on four props, three hookers and "nine back-five forwards out of 13", as he said, when thinking aloud, at one of the pre-season camps in Athlone. But he says that's not cut in stone.

"I don't see the point in nailing it, saying 'that's it and I can't change', because if what unfolded over these three weeks made it better to change it then you should do that. The most important thing still is to get the best 30 players you can on the plane.

"Making hard-and-fast decisions a month ago and having to stick to them them would be a bad plan. I've an open mind on it because if that's the best place to go when we've all the information, then we'll do that. There's a general outline of 16-14 but that's not cut in stone by any means and if I think we can get a better balance with 17-13 then we could go there."

Amid all of this, while tomorrow is a cut-off point as such, there are still over three weeks to departure and five weeks to the first game, with provincial games and an Irish President's XV v Irish Under-25 selection to be played in the interim. So one or two walking wounded such as, say, Shane Horgan could be deemed special cases.

Replacements can be called for an injured squad member at any time, but said squad member would thus be omitted. Hence, although Australia can gamble on two hookers more readily than most given the host nation can call in replacements at shorter notice, most are going with three specialists at hooker and scrumhalf.

Say, for example, Keith Wood had to be rested for a game. Then at least Ireland would have two hookers in his absence. Otherwise, they would have to omit him for a replacement.

Nevertheless, this creates imbalances elsewhere, and while the versatility of the likes of John Kelly, Shane Horgan and perhaps Donncha O'Callaghan is valuable, it's likely O'Sullivan will gamble on just five out-and-out backrowers, with no ready-made alternative as a specialist openside to Keith Gleeson.

Hard decisions, followed by hard phone calls.