ROARING AHEAD
Would it be cheeky of me to point out that the Lions only began playing winning rugby once the Leinster players got involved?
They did, after all, only pull ahead of their opponents last Saturday after Jamie Heaslip took the field and with him, Drico and Kearney starting last night, they had the result beyond doubt after ten minutes.
Yeah, maybe it IS a bit cheeky, but this is a Leinster blog, so I don’t actually care!
Of course, Ulster deserves a mention as well, since Tommy Bowe must have surely nailed down the No14 jumper having scored two AND set up another two, plus there was the excellent scamper down the park by Stephen Ferris to ensure the action lasted the entire 80 minutes.
And in case you think I’m deliberately avoiding the Southerners, well, they only had Wallace on the park last night and he didn’t do much, but I will say that Stephen Jones made enough boo-boos to at least make it a tie between himself and ROG for the Test fly-half spot.
But overall, it would seem McGeechan’s selection policy is simple. Pick Ireland’s grand slam XV, then whenever a non-Irish squad member seems to be playing well at all, find a way to get him in to make the balance more respectable.
I have a feeling Kearney, Ferris, Heaslip and Fitzgerald will be the biggest casualties of this, with Lee Byrne’s flawless display at the weekend plus Tom Croft’s electrifying pace on the hard ground surely winning them the nod. Jamie and Luke could well get overlooked simply because, barring injury, this will surely not be their last tour.
And despite the rather selective observations by Stu Barnes at Sky, I saw enough from Ugo Monye to see he doesn’t deserve the 11 shirt – he first try was totally down to a brilliant spin pass on the run by Bowe…Barnes chose to see it as Monye “taking a pass that was a bit too high extremely well” (paraphrase) – unbelievable!
So after last night’s hammering, here’s how I see the test squad shaping up so far…the cast-iron certainties in my book are in capitals, contenders in brackets.
BYRNE, BOWE, O’DRISCOLL, Roberts (Flutey), S Williams (Fitzgerald), S Jones (O’Gara), PHILLIPS.
Jenkins (Sheridan), Mears (Ford), Murray (Vickery), SHAW, O’CONNELL, CROFT, M Williams (Wallace), Powell (Heaslip).
And on a final note, muchos congrats to Gordon D’Arcy for his belated call-up, even though he’d be hard pressed to make the team ahead of Messrs Flutey and Roberts who have had a head start with the squad. JLP
