Irish series has hot competition

The Irish Rugby team during their first open training held at Eden Park. Picture / Greg Bowker

International rugby faces a trial of sorts over the next few weeks - will the public continue to lap up the All Black test-runs as the wider world sits down to inhale the greatest sporting show on Earth.

The Irish side, under the captaincy of the brilliant Brian O'Driscoll, arrived in New Zealand yesterday, beginning with the sort of low-key training run that would enthral a Golden Oldies side. The spectator count was about the same.

A few hours after arriving on a long flight, the Irish skylarked through a training session on the No 2 ground at Eden Park.

A few light warm-up drills, Gaelic football, soccer. They were all on the menu, along with O'Driscoll gently stretching a bruised calf muscle.

"Where's the round ball," one official asked as they entered Eden Park, and this object of desire was quickly produced in a string bag.

Soccer is not an entirely irrelevant subject right now, even to two of the five top-ranked rugby teams in the world.

Football's World Cup, with its unabated passions and drama, will fill the airwaves and newspapers for the next month.

Not that it is the All Blacks' job to blatantly compete in these areas, but while Rooney's metatarsal and Ronaldhino's fluid genius raise the global pulse, an A-slash-B All Black side will jog out against the touring Irish in matches that have, as yet, parked the nation nearer the comfortable back than the edge of its seat.

The most important part of this two-test script is for the Irish to put up credible opposition in Hamilton and Auckland, something they failed woefully to do at Lansdowne Rd late last year.

What would set the cat among the pigeons, and let loose the talkback callers on Graham Henry, would be an Irish victory.

There is no such thing as bad publicity for sport and an unlikely Irish triumph would raise merry hell, whereas an All Black stampede would quickly charge off into the distance.

The bigger question, however, is whether, over time, the mass selection of players for the All Blacks will erode the status of the test rugby. There has to at least be some chance that it will. And what happens, you have to ask, if the ultimate goal of winning the World Cup continues to elude the All Blacks?

There are questions whether handing the All Black jersey around in the manner of a trial creates the desperation for selection that for many years fuelled New Zealand's rugby name.

Young men these days are used to having many things handed to them on a plate, and a black jersey with a fern on it is just another object, especially if everyone else has got one.

The extremely broad-base approach is, after all, only a theory, and not a guaranteed grasp on the World Cup trophy.

Jovial the Irish training might have been, but only their chirpy coach Eddie O'Sullivan was available for interview so soon after arrival, and he defended the All Black selection methods in one breath while inadvertently decrying the approach in another.

"I don't think it's a problem for them - Graham did the same in autumn when they came up last year. He's got strength in depth and most coaches would like to be able to do that. I don't think it takes anything away from it [international rugby].

"New Zealand has the most skilful side in the world at the moment. People are hopeful they will run out of steam before the World Cup.

"We'll put our best side on the pitch - you don't mess around and experiment in the Southern Hemisphere against teams like New Zealand and Australia.

"When you have a schedule as New Zealand has, you have to work your squad a bit. I'd like to do the same at times and I don't have the latitude. The most important thing in international rugby is to win."

Yet O'Sullivan also claimed complete faith in his back-up players and would have no worries over injuries.

"I'm not concerned either way," he reckoned.

Maybe it was miscommunication, but O'Sullivan talked all around the subject when asked twice whether a weakened All Black side might have left the door ajar for the tourists.

This is the world of coach-speak, of course, where you have it every way to keep the public, the opposition and most importantly your own players happy if you wish. Over the next few weeks it will be the public who supply an independent vote.