Pope keeps faith with team to face Ballymena

As befits next weekend's semi-final line-up, they are the four form teams in the top flight, each of them having won four of their last five games to qualify for the play-offs.

The quartet of St Mary's, Terenure, Lansdowne and Ballymena are probably the most settled as well - hence the respective coaches settling on established selections.

Indicative of St Mary's more settled nature of late is that Brent Pope could yesterday announce an unchanged line-up for the fourth game running for their home semi-final against Ballymena on Saturday.

Although that sequence began with a less than inspiring defeat at Terenure, Pope retained faith in his starting XV, since when St Mary's have accumulated eight tries in beating the dominant forces of recent times, Cork Constitution and Shannon, by an aggregate of 81-11.

Without any representative call-ups to his squad since March, even Pope has little to grumble about of late and not alone does he welcome the lack of upheavals in his squad, he's even quite chipper about it.

"Emmet Byrne is back at full speed too. He's scrummaging well and he's training well so he strengthens our impact player situation, so that's an ace up our sleeves. I'm happy with the preparation. It's been relatively lowkey and relaxed."

The only grumble doing the rounds in Templeville Road, is the composition of the Irish squad for the Americas, with St Mary's feeling more aggrieved than most after Peter McKenna, Trevor Brennan and Victor Costello all missed out.

Given McKenna's injury enforced absence from the Irish A campaign, and Dominic Crotty's sound form for both the Irish As and Munster, Pope had little qualms over that, while Brennan in part may have lost out because of Kieron Dawson's injury and the need for someone like Andy Ward to cover both sides.

"But Trevor's playing as well as I've ever seen him play and as for Victor, I don't know what he's done wrong. He'd be on any team of mine, I'd have to say."

Ballymena, are expected to go with the same unchanged line-up for the third game running. Terenure, who are at home in Sunday's second semi-final, are also expected to be unchanged for the fourth game running, having won the previous three, while their opponents Lansdowne, have recalled Robert Dolan on the wing in place of Brian Glennon, who has filled in on the left wing for the last two games - effectively their only change in four outings.

Meanwhile, the promotion/relegation play-off contenders, UCD and Clontarf, have yet to finalise their sides in advance of Sunday's first leg at the Belfield Bowl, although the latter's coach, Alex Wyllie, expects to have a clean bill of health.

"These are big, pressure games and it's a shame that it's come down to this," said Wyllie, who admits that Galwegians would have been the more experienced wiser side, whereas UCD "will probably move the ball around a lot more."

The play-offs have delayed his projected return to New Zealand, although the summer sunshine has alleviated that desire, and the Irish squad can at least take some consolation in that their Lens bugbear will not be renewing hostilities with them as Argentinean coach, which he has relinquished because of the overlapping of the seasons here and there, and will instead be hoping to return to Clontarf next season.

By comparison, UCD have already lost one of their co-coaches, the highly-rated IRB-employed Kiwi Lee Smith, who was granted a farewell dinner at the player's behest and is rumoured to be Twickenham bound as part of Clive Woodward's think-tank.

UCD are a little unlucky to have been forced into this playoff, given Blackrock's rearranged defeat to Galwegians probably wouldn't have happened had David Quinlan and James Ferris not been called into the Irish squad for the Hong Kong Sevens, thereby granting Blackrock a postponement of the game at a time when they were on fire.

Worse still for coach John McLean, even more than a couple of niggling injuries to Des Dillon and Michael Colling, is that the end-of-season, twolegged play-off coincides with exam time. This is why they requested this weekend's first leg be put back to Sunday, and as well as having exams on Saturday, several more have finals during this week and next, with one player, Anthony Carroll, having a couple on Monday next.

"Basically, it's the worst time of the year for us. We'll probably leave it until Thursday at the earliest before picking our team, and we'll leave it up to individual players as to whether they wish to train or play. It's messy, but you certainly can't put any pressure on them to play."

St Mary's: P McKenna; J McWeeney, G Gannon, R McIlreavy, D Hickie; M McHugh, P Lynch; P Coyle, P Smyth, D Clare, I Bloomer, M O'Kelly, T Brennan (capt), V Costello, R Doyle. Replacements - D Lee, E Byrne, P Sullivan, A O'Sullivan, F Campion, A Conboy.

Lansdowne: G D'Arcy; R Niland, S Horgan, G Hamilton, R Dolan; B Everitt, D O'Mahony (capt); R Corrigan, O Ennis, A McKeen, B Cusack, G Quinn, A McCullan, C McEntee, L Toland.

BALLYMENA (probable): S Mason; J Topping, S Stewart, R Botha, S McDowell; S Broughton, M Edwards; N McKernan, A Stewart, C Millar, M Blair, G Longwell, A Graham, D O'Cuinneagain, D Topping.

Due to a typographical/editing error, an estimate as to the IRFU's unprojected additional earnings from the Ireland-Italy game at Lansdowne Road appeared as £5 million instead of £.5 million. As a result, the same mistake was then applied to "another sum close to that" for the IRFU from Munster's run to the Heineken Cup final. Alas, there is not another £9 million floating around 62 Lansdowne Road.

Friday

Leinster Under-20 League final: Blackrock v St Mary's, Anglesea Road (6.00).

Saturday

All-Ireland League

Division One semi-final play-off: St Mary's v Ballymena, Templeville Road (4.05).

Division Two/Three promotion/relegation play-off, second leg: Portadown (13) v Instonians (23), Chamber's Park (2.30).

Sunday

All-Ireland League

Division One semi-final play-off: Terenure v Lansdowne, Lakelands Park (3.00). Division One/Two promotion/relegation play-off, first leg: UCD v Clontarf, Belfield Bowl (3.00).