DECLAN KIDNEY WILL this afternoon name his squad for the upcoming RBS Six Nations championships.
And the Ireland head coach looks to be without another big name this morning.
Leinster skipper Leo Cullen will miss the entire championship, according to this morning’s Irish Daily Star (print edition), due to an achilles injury.
The second row will reportedly undergo surgery and faces up to two-and-a-half months in the recovery room.
Kidney’s usual captain Brian O’Driscoll is the most high-profile absentee of course, after he went under the knife himself. The stand-in skipper Paul O’Connell is available despite a knee knock he picked up during last week’s win over Castres in the Heineken Cup.
Former Ireland international Hugo McNeill says today’s announcement will show how thin players are on the ground for Kidney.
“It highlights how vulnerable we are,” he told Darren Frehill on RTÉ radio earlier. ”We obviously have injuries to key players – Brian [O'Driscoll] is out – if we were to lose two or three other players it really makes a massive impact on the team.
“I think the squad announcement is interesting but not crucial to what Ireland will do. I’ve re-watched Welsh game an awful lot recently and the thing that came out was that we had an awful lot of ball, and an awful lot of territory. But it wasn’t used.
“There wasn’t a shape and structure to the backline to put the ball through the phases until the play opened up. Now, that’s particularly important when you have Brian O’Driscoll out of the backline. Not only for his brilliane but he’s scored – even going back to the Grand Slam year – a lot of very intelligent tries.
“If you’re going to want to plug that gap, it’s really important you have a shape and structure. Whether you’re going to bring in a specialist centre or as reported you could move someone off another position.”
Ireland begin their Six Nations championship bid with a rematch of that heart-breaking Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Wales. Warren Gatland brings his side to the Aviva Stadium on 5 February.
We’ll have the squad as it’s released this lunchtime.
Well i think most people can understand that, i would back mickey harte to the hilt in any argument against RTE. I heard the skit and was shocked at the time, the guy that did it is just not funny.
I agree with the 2 previous comments. John Murray has a smugness about him that reminds me of his predecessor on Radio 1 who has since gone on to ‘bigger and better things’
Murray is a muppet. His attempts at humour are pathetic. I switch off in the morning as soon as the news is over. Sadly there is a dearth of talent at RTE. Perhaps lowering salaries to appropriate levels might remove the smugness?
John Murray (who makes nice bobs on the side when RTE buy shows; like the recent Charlie Bird excursion to the South Pole, which he was involved in producing), is woefully ill suited to what he is doing now. He’s as funny as a broken leg in a marathon. Like Mooney in the afternoon, his signature tune has me reaching for the next station within nanoseconds.
He is a current affairs man, and that’s it. Des Cahill is a colour reporter, not a snorting ill prepared sports correspondent with stilted delivery and a jarring manner. Pat Kenny is a well briefed incisive and thorough interviewer, who happens to be devoid of spontaneous persona, so they gave him a talk show for eleven years, at the bones of three quarters of a million for each of those years. Tubridy is a vacuous, bubble dwelling non entity, who only came to life in recent times when Fianna Fail were mentioned, and now he’s numero uno, and falling fast. Duffy was a vox pop guy, who was anointed by Gaybo, beyond his talents, and now makes the Lahvline his own personal soapbox, treating callers with sheer bad manners, abruptness, and sighing condescension.
The late Gerry Ryan, who drove me cracked with his on air consumption of any passing foodstuffs, his constant plugs for Harry Crosbie and his other buddies (in exchange for freebies of course), and his arrogance, had, despite all those failings, more charm, and more personality than the whole flippin’ lot put together.
He was probably one of the only on air personalities in that institution, (with the exception of a fair chunk of the news team, Morning Ireland et al.) who wasn’t promoted beyond their station, as it were.
RTE is a living breathing example of the Peter Principle, with a healthy dash of nepotism.
What a choice of song…idiots. What planet are they on. John murrays show is scripted and produced, there’s more than him to blame. And who leaked the contents of the private and confidential letter received by Rte? The postman?! The cleaner?? Professor plum in the library with the candlestick??!
Ryan, with respect Gerry Ryan most certainly was promoted outside of his own show…secrets, school around the corner, Ryan confidential, operation transformation and on and on. Rte seem to use the same handful of bores to do everything! But leaking a letter and handing a "satirical" script to John Murray of all people to read out??? What planet were they on. Did they think people would turn on the hugely respected Mickey Harte instead of them??? Eejits.
Oh, I quite agree, Jaynie. I wouldn’t be looking at him with rose tinted specs or anything :) I remember The School Around The Corner too!
But my point remains that his bread and butter, the morning slot on 2fm, despite the faults I bored ye all with, had far more individuality attached than John Murray’s efforts.
His producer would want to be…I won’t say what, but as you allude to, there is a large and bloated degree of support behind the guy or gal on the mic, especially and almost exclusively wrt RTE, and it’s ridiculous that none of them had the skill or the cop on to say, “Hang on a second!”
Very insensitive, I’m a Dublin gaa supporter and it’s true to say we are like one big family.its very upsetting what the Harte family and John went through.shame on ya RTE.if I wasn’t going to the game tomorrow I wouldn’t bother watching it on tv.
‘One big ‘family” – when the footballers play Croker is always full (or nearly so) , when the hurlers have a game never more than half full. Lots of ‘family’ members don’t do their duty when the caman is involved.
Mickey Harte has had a tragic year, and in the face of all that stress he still pushes forward his beloved Tyrone to greater heights. The sketch was insensitive for sure, and would understandably have annoyed Harte at this time. It isn’t fair, however, to paint all of RTÉ as ‘muppets’ – this is an organisation made up of many individuals – doing their best and, more often than not, doing a great job. The problem with comment sites like these, I find, is that the negative voice is quite often the only one that bothers with being heard. John Murray is a fine presenter, so is Mooney etc… Not perfect, but who is?
Totally agree with you there, wouldn’t exactly call him a natural! In such bad taste! Did not one person on the team say…hang on a minute…maybe not the best choice of song…oh and probably best not to skit about the private and confidential letter our boss leaked, sorry, I mean received
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Well i think most people can understand that, i would back mickey harte to the hilt in any argument against RTE. I heard the skit and was shocked at the time, the guy that did it is just not funny.
Rte are muppets.
I agree with the 2 previous comments. John Murray has a smugness about him that reminds me of his predecessor on Radio 1 who has since gone on to ‘bigger and better things’
Murray is a muppet. His attempts at humour are pathetic. I switch off in the morning as soon as the news is over. Sadly there is a dearth of talent at RTE. Perhaps lowering salaries to appropriate levels might remove the smugness?
John Murray (who makes nice bobs on the side when RTE buy shows; like the recent Charlie Bird excursion to the South Pole, which he was involved in producing), is woefully ill suited to what he is doing now. He’s as funny as a broken leg in a marathon. Like Mooney in the afternoon, his signature tune has me reaching for the next station within nanoseconds.
He is a current affairs man, and that’s it. Des Cahill is a colour reporter, not a snorting ill prepared sports correspondent with stilted delivery and a jarring manner. Pat Kenny is a well briefed incisive and thorough interviewer, who happens to be devoid of spontaneous persona, so they gave him a talk show for eleven years, at the bones of three quarters of a million for each of those years. Tubridy is a vacuous, bubble dwelling non entity, who only came to life in recent times when Fianna Fail were mentioned, and now he’s numero uno, and falling fast. Duffy was a vox pop guy, who was anointed by Gaybo, beyond his talents, and now makes the Lahvline his own personal soapbox, treating callers with sheer bad manners, abruptness, and sighing condescension.
The late Gerry Ryan, who drove me cracked with his on air consumption of any passing foodstuffs, his constant plugs for Harry Crosbie and his other buddies (in exchange for freebies of course), and his arrogance, had, despite all those failings, more charm, and more personality than the whole flippin’ lot put together.
He was probably one of the only on air personalities in that institution, (with the exception of a fair chunk of the news team, Morning Ireland et al.) who wasn’t promoted beyond their station, as it were.
RTE is a living breathing example of the Peter Principle, with a healthy dash of nepotism.
Rte should be shut down
What a choice of song…idiots. What planet are they on. John murrays show is scripted and produced, there’s more than him to blame. And who leaked the contents of the private and confidential letter received by Rte? The postman?! The cleaner?? Professor plum in the library with the candlestick??!
All GAA players should boycott RTE this weekend and send the smug fcukers a clear message.
Ryan, with respect Gerry Ryan most certainly was promoted outside of his own show…secrets, school around the corner, Ryan confidential, operation transformation and on and on. Rte seem to use the same handful of bores to do everything! But leaking a letter and handing a "satirical" script to John Murray of all people to read out??? What planet were they on. Did they think people would turn on the hugely respected Mickey Harte instead of them??? Eejits.
Oh, I quite agree, Jaynie. I wouldn’t be looking at him with rose tinted specs or anything :) I remember The School Around The Corner too!
But my point remains that his bread and butter, the morning slot on 2fm, despite the faults I bored ye all with, had far more individuality attached than John Murray’s efforts.
His producer would want to be…I won’t say what, but as you allude to, there is a large and bloated degree of support behind the guy or gal on the mic, especially and almost exclusively wrt RTE, and it’s ridiculous that none of them had the skill or the cop on to say, “Hang on a second!”
Very insensitive, I’m a Dublin gaa supporter and it’s true to say we are like one big family.its very upsetting what the Harte family and John went through.shame on ya RTE.if I wasn’t going to the game tomorrow I wouldn’t bother watching it on tv.
‘One big ‘family” – when the footballers play Croker is always full (or nearly so) , when the hurlers have a game never more than half full. Lots of ‘family’ members don’t do their duty when the caman is involved.
Mickey Harte has had a tragic year, and in the face of all that stress he still pushes forward his beloved Tyrone to greater heights. The sketch was insensitive for sure, and would understandably have annoyed Harte at this time. It isn’t fair, however, to paint all of RTÉ as ‘muppets’ – this is an organisation made up of many individuals – doing their best and, more often than not, doing a great job. The problem with comment sites like these, I find, is that the negative voice is quite often the only one that bothers with being heard. John Murray is a fine presenter, so is Mooney etc… Not perfect, but who is?
Totally agree with you there, wouldn’t exactly call him a natural! In such bad taste! Did not one person on the team say…hang on a minute…maybe not the best choice of song…oh and probably best not to skit about the private and confidential letter our boss leaked, sorry, I mean received