Kidney learns from his predecessor’s mistakes

The seeds for that disaster were sown the previous year when O’Sullivan took a squad south 14 months before that tournament and played his strongest team in all three Tests, making only one change to the starting XV and barely using the bench. Twice they pushed the All Blacks close and were leading the Wallabies after 50 minutes in Perth only to fade.

In his autobiography, O’Sullivan described the trip as the happiest Ireland tour he’d experienced but this wasn’t necessarily the experience of the benchers and certainly not that of the eight players who saw no action. Having held bags by day, they were then left to their own devices and just asked not to make much noise when they came in. It was a miserable existence.

Even if all his best players had been fit, Kidney wouldn’t have gone down this route, because he understands the best chance of having a successful squad is to have a happy squad and the only thing that really makes players happy is to be given a fair crack. Taking the Barbarians game in Limerick as part of the tour, Kidney ensured every player would start two of the four matches. The selection of Paddy Wallace and Tony Buckley for Brisbane sent out the message that form would be rewarded.

Another 3-0 defeat, the same as in 2006, and a wretchedly poor performance against an eminently beatable Wallabies side yesterday, means you could never describe this tour as having been a “success”, yet as an exercise in preparation for a World Cup, it was definitely more useful.

For Kidney and his technical coaches have seen second, and in some cases, third-choice forwards perform under pressure in antipodean conditions and under the new refereeing interpretations.

After yesterday’s performance, Kidney knows he has no reason to be complacent — just as improvements are made in defence, the setpiece falls apart. Just when they were congratulating themselves for putting four tries past the All Blacks, their execution deserts them in Suncorp.

“We defended okay but they didn’t have to work as hard for their tries as we’d have liked,” he said afterwards. “The same with our possession. We didn’t hold it through too many phases and gave it back quite easily so we ended up defending for long periods of time. It’s always going to be difficult if you’re handing back as easily as we did tonight.”

He knew as well as anyone that a rare opportunity had been missed. But he has learnt plenty from the venture. Four new players were capped: Chris Henry, Dan Touhy, Damian Varley and Rhys Ruddock. Whether or not all four are in the World Cup squad, the sheer volume of matches next year demands that Kidney has 30 players he can trust to perform in New Zealand: four warm-up Tests in September against Scotland, France (twice) and England, then just a fortnight’s break before that USA game. If all goes to plan, the quarter-final in Wellington (against South Africa or Wales) will be Ireland’s ninth Test match in 10 weeks.

Just as there will be fluidity of selection, there will be fluidity of movement. Ireland is the only Tier One country that must play its pool games in four different towns and cities — New Plymouth, Auckland, Rotorua and Dunedin — but Kidney is determined to turn this into a positive. For while moving increases the number of logistical variables, it also makes the experience more like a tour and, based on feedback from the players, touring is better than being stuck in one base.

Even allowing for disappointing results, this tour party has remained a happy, close-knit one, which is some going after the dark sequence of events early on: Jerry Flannery’s injury right at the end of the Barbarians’ game, Jamie Heaslip’s moment of madness, Ronan O’Gara’s clumsy grope, and then the avalanche of points. Just as you winced at John Muldoon’s bravery in staying in the defensive line with a broken forearm, you winced at the sight of a tour going down the tubes.

It dipped into dark comedy in Rotorua when defence coach Les Kiss, already struggling with a bad back, got stuck in the hotel lift for an hour and a half with kicking coach Mark Tainton, who was only there to help Kiss with his bags. “We got to know each other pretty well,” Kiss joked.

It was a tough learning experience for him, trying to bring everyone literally up to speed on a Super 14-type tempo when not everyone fell into the category of quick learner. But there was an improvement from nine tries conceded in New Plymouth, to three in Rotorua and just two yesterday — even if both of those fell into the soft category.

If Kiss looked a little weary, Alan Gaffney was positively animated at the attacking possibilities opened up by the quicker game. He will have been thoroughly annoyed by yesterday’s sloppiness but can continue to think positively. For if there is a renewed value in having players who can beat opponents one-on-one, then Ireland are well-stocked, with Keith Earls and Luke Fitzgerald to rejoin the attack.

To be fair to him, Kidney has at no stage resorted to naming the long list of players who were unavailable to him, and resisted the urge to call for hoary old reinforcements like Alan Quinlan on the basis that he wanted to build a sense of solidarity and self-sufficiency within the squad that was here — after all, he won’t be able to call on reinforcements during the World Cup.

Over the past couple of weeks, Kidney dropped the odd playful hint that the tournament will be his swansong. The past three weeks may not look like the springboard for a successful finale to his term but they have been highly educational.