New Zealand being around 12,000 miles away as the crow flies, news filters up here to North Western Europe in a kind of quaint, delayed manner. The expanse of longitude is something which our electronic global village will never overcome.

This week, newspaper sports editors in Ireland were left holding their back pages on a couple of occasions, awaiting developments on the bizzare stand off between Ireland and David Kelly, rugby columnist with the Indo.

The players refused to do one on one interviews with him or conferences he was present at in light of his article last weekend after the first test and cited previous occassions when he had raised their ire, albeit privately. The assembled print media refused to attend on media days and carry out planned one on one interviews in solidarity with their colleague. So, the players threw their toys out of the pram and the journos spat their dummies.

Thankfully by Wednesday (or was it Thursday?) both camps were contentedly back side by side in the uniquely claustrophobic twin buggy that is a test rugby tour. The players may have genuinely felt that Kelly has been disrespectful (not the same thing as critical) given their co-operation with him in the past. Despite this you can't help but feel this was a needless distraction that could have been handled a bit better.

Hopefully the brouhaha will be trapped behind the NZ longitudinal barrier when they fly out of there early next week for Perth.

A good performance tomorrow morning wouldn't half help.

It's the same team and formation as last week (including the replacements) for Ireland. NZ have shuffled the pack a little in the light of a perceived weakness of Nonu defensively last week and an abandonment of the twin fliers experiment of playing two out and out openside loose forwards at 6 and 7. Hollah certainly wasn't that effective last week, so the inexperienced Kaino steps in to restore a more orthodox balance to the back row.

Dermody Mealamu Hayman
   Jack  Flavell
Kaino So'oialo  McCaw

       Kelleher
          McAllister
            Mauger
               Laulala

Rokocoko       Howlett
       Muliaina

Replacements:
Andrew Hore
Neemia Tialata
Greg Rawlinson
Craig Newby
Jimmy Cowan
David Hill
Ma'a Nonu

Rawlinson or "Dolph" as he is known to his team mates may be wishing he took more seriously the call of his birth nation SA to come back and play for them. Despite his supernatural jaw size (have you seen this guy in a scrum cap?) he looked well out of his depth at this level locking the scrum with Jack last Saturday morning. So, in his place we get Flavell, second half substitute and try scorer last weekend. Flavell has a bit of a dark past in terms of not being the best behaved boy, so he went into exile and played in Japan for a few years to consider himself and now it seems he is back to make his 'second' debut in an All-Blacks starting line up.

He certainly hasn't lost his ability to talk, claiming on Thursday that NZ were aiming to 'clean Ireland off the paddock' on Saturday. Talk aside, he is a formidable athlete and is extremely mobile and destructive in the loose for a second row. With weather conditions looking decidedly stereotypical for Auckland in June we may get plenty of scope to test his mettle in the tight and line out. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep his head for a full 80 minutes, the two O's at 4 and 5 for Ireland are two of the wiliest and most experienced players in terms of All Blacks Tests in the NH and if there is a chink in his temperment they'll look to expose it.

Nonu's replacement Casey Laulala also has a strong reputation from his club career, however he is extremely inexperienced when it comes to Test rugby with only a single previous cap. It is a big ask for him to handle a pairing as dynamic as O'Driscoll and D'Arcy and I'm sure our two centres will be looking to pummel his artery all day. Wishful thinking on Ireland's part would have Mauger a little distracted marshalling or protecting Laulala. It's quite possible he's good enough to carry that even if needs be.

I'm hopeful for another good performance from Ireland and I think they can produce something even better than last weekend, however even an improvement to an 80 minute performance far from guarantees success in this particular time zone. Worryingly it looks like the weather is against us, a trench warfare game fought in the tight would see genetics come to the fore eventually.

I'm sure the players are well aware this tour is on a fine line between success and failure with one eye on Perth next weekend, it's vital they check-in some momentum for that flight.

tags:rugby

Published by Paul.