Horgan returns to face France

Question marks remain over Brian O'Driscoll and Peter Stringer's involvement in this Sunday's clash with France in Croke Park, but the big news to emerge from this morning's team announcement was the surprise return of Shane Horgan to the starting line-up.

The Leinster wing suffered a knee injury against Gloucester last month and had been expected to sit out at least the first two games of the championship. However, the Meath man, whose last Six Nations contribution was the memorable try at Twickenham last year, revealed today that he had always targeted the France game for his return, despite not publicly raising expectations.
 
His recovery also offers hope for that of his captain whose hamstring strain is not as bad as first feared, but enough of a concern for him to miss today's team announcement. In his place Paul O'Connell was ushered in to field the captain's questions.
 
Both  O'Connell and Horgan will deputise for the Leinster centre, in a sense, if he does not make it on Sunday.  O'Connell will skipper the side on its first ever outing in Croke Park, while Horgan will join Gordon D'Arcy in midfield and allow Geordan Murphy on to the right wing.
 
The decisions to play O'Driscoll and Peter Stringer (hand) will be down to the wire, according to coach Eddie O'Sullivan, who also has concerns over Denis Leamy.  Stringer has a small crack in a bone in his hand, inflicted by a boot on Sunday, and will be replaced by Isaac Boss if he doesn't make it.  O'Sullivan, though, has confidence in his reserves.
 
"Hopefully we'll have Peter, he's playing out of his skin," he said. "But Isaac will be a very good deputy there. And Eoin Reddan, whose been out of the loop for a while now, will get a chance to come on to the bench."
 
Leamy, who turned in an immense performance from start to finish in Cardiff, had an abscess lanced after the game and must wait and see if medical staff are confident they can keep his wound wrapped up for 80 minutes. O'Sullivan is still undecided as to what he will do if the Munster man doesn't make it.  He has kept Jamie Heaslip in the 25-man squad just in case, but whether he will start ahead of Neil Best in Leamy's absence is not clear yet.
 
The healing of Horgan was a "phenomenal recovery", according to the coach, who paid tribute to the winger, the medical staff and the surgeon who patched him up just a week before the Welsh game.  Horgan himself says that he was "always looking to get back for this particular game, although we didn't state it publicly."  Regardless, one of Ireland's most impressive performers in recent seasons is back. And not a moment too soon.
 
"In the context of where we are now it's hugely important for us," O'Sullivan said of Horgan's return. "Because if Brian doesn't make it through on the weekend Shane will go to 12, which is a reasonably good solution to the problem, I'd say, on the face of it."
 
Last week's man of the match D'Arcy will then go to 13.  Their were doubts over his fitness too before today, but he is rehabbing well after hearing a "pop" while trapped in a ruck in Cardiff. Usually, as O'Sullivan says, that's "something very bad", but their appears to be no major after effects and the former player of the tournament is expected to be his effervescent self.
 
For the moment, at least, the pack is unchanged.  Unlike some, the coach doesn't agree that the lineout was particularly weak against Wales and he maintains that the decision to stick with Rory Best at hooker wasn't a tight one. Jerry Flannery, then, stays on the bench.
 
"I thought Rory had a great game.  He scrummaged very well, actually. One of Rory's strength, which people may fail to recognise because he isn't the biggest hooker in the world, is that he is a fantastic scrummager.
 
"Our scrum, obviously, was going to be tested and he had a big part in that scrum being successful and I would say there is a good chance next Sunday of it being tested again."
 
"A couple of lineout throws went pear-shaped," added O'Sullivan. "One of them was certainly not his fault, he threw it exactly where it needed to be . . . and one of them went astray.  So he threw one bad throw out of ten."
 
O'Sullivan was also adamant that Malcolm O'Kelly, who captains the A side, is not fourth in the pecking order of secondrows, but needs to prove his match fitness since being laid up by a chronic knee injury which has clearly concerned the coach.
 
Frankie Sheahan and Keith Gleeson are among the more experienced members of the A pack that contains the likes of Bryan Young and Stephen Ferris.
 
The backline share just nine full caps between them and, considering eight of those belong to Tommy Bowe, is largely untried at international level.

Ireland(v France) G Dempsey  (Leinster); S Horgan (Leinster), A.N. Other, G D'Arcy (Leinster),, D Hickie (Leinster); R O'Gara (Munster),  A.N. Other; M Horan (Munster), R Best (Ulster), J Hayes (Munster); D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster); S Easterby (Llanelli),D Wallace (Munster), D Leamy (Munster). Replacements: J Flannery (Munster), S Best (Ulster), M O'Driscoll (Munster), N Best (Ulster) / J Heaslip (Leinster),  I Boss (Ulster) / E Reddan (Wasps), P Wallace (Ballymena/Ulster),  G Murphy (Leicester) / A Trimble (Ulster)

Ireland A  (v England Saxons):  D Riordan (Connacht); T Bowe (Ulster), B Murphy (Munster), K Lewis (Leinster), R Kearney (Leinster); I Humphreys (Leicester), C O'Loughlin (Conncacht); R McCormack (Leinster), F Sheahan (Munster), B Young (Ulster); T Hogan  (Leinster), M O'Kelly (Leinster); S Ferris (Ulster) K Gleeson  (Leinster), R Wilson (Ulster). Replacements: B Jackman (Leinster), P Bracken  (Wasps), L Cullen (Leicester), S Jennings (Leicester), K Campbell (Ulster), J Sexton (Leinster), J Hearty (Connacht)