IRELAND TOUR TO NEW ZEALAND: One week left on the tour and of the season. Last stop Auckland, and though it's been a sunny tour in many respects, after we escaped the snow and closed airports and roads on the South Island, some of the taxi drivers reckon we've brought the muggy, grey, wet weather with us.

Despite this, as I write, a body has flown downwards from about two-thirds up the lofty heights of the 328-metre Sky Tower nearby, where some have a mind for a spot of bungee jumping.

The hustle and bustle of Auckland is a change in tempo in every respect. New Zealand's most cosmopolitan city accounts for almost one-third of the country's population of 3.8 million. Some of the Irish players intend emulating the zanier locals with a bungee jump from the tower today, prior to a headlong attack on the All Blacks this Saturday.

"This is our last match of the season," said Keith Wood yesterday. "We're going to try and give it full blast, and put whatever we can into it. We can put our feet up for a while after it."

Ireland have, predictably, named an unchanged side, and although Brian O'Driscoll provided a slight scare by sitting out the morning session with a slight ankle strain, it was no more than precautionary. He also teased New Zealand television by suggesting he wouldn't rule out a move Down Under one day.

"Never say never. You never know if a chance would come along to play a season in the Super 12, whether it would be in Australia or here."

The All Blacks have made two changes for Saturday, recalling Jonah Lomu to the right wing at the expense of the decidedly unlucky Doug Howlett, and outside centre Mark Robinson instead of the equally unfortunate Tana Umaga, thereby ensuring there are 14 players from Cantebury in the team. Howlett and Umaga weren't the most culpable for the All Blacks' flaws in Darisbrook, and the former did finish off their first try after all. Given he's also the only Auckland player in the squad, it's certainly not designed to assuage a disgruntled New Zealand media and public.

Nor is coach John Mitchell's increasingly wary and taciturn explanations, all the more so when set against what is perceived as being comparatively articulate and more entertaining press dealings from Ireland, and Wood especially. Wood and co have been actually been relatively low key.

"I'm not one for mass changes," explained Mitchell. "You don't achieve cohesion. We've put faith in these players and they've been given another opportunity."

Perhaps a little outsmarted by the Irish centres reversing roles from their nominal numbers last Saturday, Mitchell and his assistant Robbie Deans were both non-committal about whether Lomu would play on the right or left wing. But one imagines that Ireland have a defensive plan in mind, in which Justin Bishop would be Lomu's primary marker.

Even Lomu's star has palpably waned in New Zealand, though he remains a darling amongst the kids and the world's most famous player. He will also be more popular throughout New Zealand for being the only non-Canterbury player in the starting line-up.

However there's clearly a perception about that Lomu is not as fit or as focused as he might be, and has possibly lost his hunger. Still, you wouldn't particularly fancy being in his path with a rugby ball in his mitts, and his record of 35 tries in 57 Tests underlines his latent threat.

"We half guessed they might play Lomu," said Ireland manager Brian O'Brien, and O'Sullivan possibly won't be that distressed by great man's recall, as he'd have assuredly devised plans for him.

"I suspect they'll use him to get good gain lines, as they do a lot, and try to get him free on the outside," ventured O'Sullivan. "They'll probably try and put the ball in his hands more often, I think, and he's just so difficult to defend against, he's such a big, strong man. I can't imagine they'll use him any differently than they've used him before.

"He's just a very powerful guy and very hard to stop getting over the gain line which, in international rugby, puts an attacking team in a very strong position. And then, obviously, when he gets free on the outside he's very hard to stop."

Questioned about his expectations of a New Zealand backlash, underlining the perception that Ireland are mere cannon fodder, O'Sullivan commented: "I suppose they'll probably feel they can improve their performance and we will too. It's another week for us and we feel that we're another step down the road to where we were last week. So in that way I think the game will be even tougher and more physical. We're expecting that."

That said, the generally one-sided critiques haven't given much credit to the tourists, not that Anthony Foley was letting on he was unduly bothered. "We're just really concentrating on ourselves, we're just being really selfish and we're going to look at our own performance and analyse that. We're not really too much bothered about the New Zealand public and what way they think, because to be honest they didn't give us a go from the start."

After Saturday's disappointment at letting slip a game which O'Sullivan admitted they "might" have won, the coach said his players wanted to throw down a marker with another big performance. "Now, I don't know if we'll win next Saturday. We'd like to feel we could put ourselves in a position to win the game and then maybe you can. So it's about trying to match the performance of last Saturday or nudge it forward a little."

A potentially critical contrast between the two Tests is that a northern hemisphere referee, Joel Jutge of France, will be replaced in Auckland by Tappe Henning of South Africa. There's a feeling that a northern hemisphere referee was probably beneficial to Ireland in Dunedin, as it would be seen as tending to mean a stricter interpretation of the rules as against Super 12-type refereeing, where basically anything goes - there's little contest at the breakdown and passes usually have to be five yards forward before they're punished.

However, Henning is known as a fairly strict interpreter of the rules and this is a Test match. And as O'Sullivan intimated, it's probably not the factor it might have been a few years ago."I would expect it to be right down the middle, because they are world referees now," he said.

NEW ZEALAND: L MacDonald (Canterbury); J Lomu (Wellington), M Robinson (Canterbury), A Mauger (Canterbury), C Ralph (Canterbury); A Mehrtens (Canterbury), J Marshall (Canterbury); G Somerville (Canterbury), M Hamett (Canterbury), D Hewett (Canterbury), C Jack (Canterbury), N Maxwell (Canterbury), R Thorne (Canterbury, capt), S Robertson (Canterbury), R McCaw (Canterbury). Replacements: T Willis (Otago), J McDonnell (Otago), S Maling (Otago), M Holah (Waikato), B Kelleher (Otago), D Gibson (Canterbury), D Gibson (Canterbury), D Howlett (Auckland).

IRELAND: G Dempsey (Terenure College and Leinster); G Murphy (Leicester), B O'Driscoll (Blackrock College and Leinster), J Kelly (Cork Constitution and Munster), J Bishop (London Irish); R O'Gara (Cork Constitution and Munster), P Stringer (Shannon and Munster); R Corrigan (Leinster and Leinster), K Wood (Harlequins, capt), J Hayes (Shannon and Munster), G Longwell (Ballymena and Ulster), P O'Connell (Young Munster and Munster), S Easterby (Llanelli), A Foley (Shannon and Munster), K Gleeson (St Mary's and Leinster). Replacements: to be finalised.