Ireland A
Wolfhounds team to face Scotland A
Feb 4th
Chris Henry will captain the Ireland Wolfhounds at Ravenhill on Friday night for their clash with Scotland ‘A’
Tickets for Friday’s international clash in Belfast are available from the Ravenhill Ticket Office (Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pm), the Ticket Hotline (tel: 028 90 493 222, Option 2 (Monday-Friday, 10am-12pm)), SS Moores (6 Chichester Street, Belfast, tel: 028 90 322966) or by clicking here.
15 - Gavin Duffy (Galwegians/Connacht)
14 - Johne Murphy (Leicester Tigers)
13 - Darren Cave (Belfast Harlequins/Ulster)
12 - Fergus McFadden (Old Belvedere/Leinster)
11 - Ian Dowling (Shannon/Munster)
10 - Ian Humphreys (Ballymena/Ulster)
9 - Peter Stringer (Shannon/Munster)
1 - Marcus Horan (Shannon/Munster)
2 - Sean Cronin (Buccaneers/Connacht)
3 - Tony Buckley (Shannon/Munster)
4 - Ryan Caldwell (Dungannon/Ulster)
5 - Devin Toner (Lansdowne/Leinster)
6 - Dan Tuohy (Ballymena/Ulster)
7 - Shane Jennings (St. Mary’s College/Leinster)
8 - Chris Henry (Ballymena/Ulster) (capt)
Replacements:
16 - Nigel Brady (Dungannon/Ulster)
17 - Mike Ross (Clontarf/Leinster)
18 - Ed O’Donoghue (Belfast Harlequins/Ulster)
19 - Niall Ronan (Shannon/Munster)
20 - Isaac Boss (Ballymena/Ulster)
21 - Ian Keatley (Galwegians/Connacht)
22 - Keith Matthews (Buccaneers/Connacht)
Wolfhounds Squad Named
Feb 2nd
Ireland team manager Paul McNaughton has announced a squad of 20 players to face Scotland ‘A’ at Ravenhill on Friday night.
Vacancies have been left in the back row and at hooker pending the announcement tomorrow of the Ireland team to play Italy in the opening game of the RBS 6 Nations.
Denis Hurley and Johne Murphy see a return to fitness and to the squad. This leaves no room for Fionn Carr who was one of Ireland’s stand out players against the Saxons and in my opion should have been included in the side at the expense of Hurley.
Marcus Horans inclusion suggests lack of match practice is keeping him out of the Senior side. It will be interest to see how the Ireland senior scrum hold up without him against a very strong Italian pack. Healy will have his work cut out for him.
Full Team:
Lansdowne Road could it be a Financial Failure?
Feb 1st
There has always been a lot of talk about Lansdowne Road and its capacity. Everyone asking, is it too small?
A recent article in one of the Newspapers has suggested that when the IRFU’s agreement with the GAA ends at the end of this years 6 nations, the IRFU could be earning less money in the new Aviva Stadium.
Experts predict that the IRFU can earn up to €5m per match after paying for match day costs and rental to their hosts, the GAA. This is double what they made in the old Lansdowne Road which had a capacity of 49000.
The new Avia Stadium, which will host rugby internationals from autumn onwards, will hold a capacity of only 50,000.
Will the overheads that were involved in Croke make up for the 32,300 reduced capacity in Lansdowne?
Should they have tried to go bigger?
One thing is certain though. Many fans will be without a ticket next year.
Ireland A/Wolfhounds Pull Out of Churchill Cup
Feb 1st
News from the Indo today that Ireland A won’t be competing in this years Churchill Cup in June. Declan Kidney has decided that it wouldn’t be in the best interestsof the Provinces or Country if Ireland took part in this years Churchill Cup.
Kidney will be traveling to to NZ and Australia with the Top 30 players in the senior side. These players won’t then won’t be available for the start of the Magners League leaving the Provinces without 30 of their front line players.
So to subtract another 30 players from this for the Churchill cup would leave the provinces with a skeloton team of academy players to start the league with.
Kidney is quoted as saying “My job is to make it work,”
“So that’s what I will do. And that will get me in trouble sometimes because I won’t speak about that in public. But the important thing is to make it work, not save myself. I’m not holding myself up as holier than thou. There’s little subtleties that I’m trying to change.
“We want it to work. We don’t want to go down the route and being Irish and picking on one another. If you look at the resources we have against what we’ve achieved, I think we’ve achieved an awful lot. And we won’t achieve more by not working with one another.”