Ireland's scrum half's

Afternoon all,

I think the vast majority of us agree with Kidney's decision to leave out Tómas O'Leary but has he made a huge error in not integrating any other scrum half's into the team? In the case of Murray that would be an extremely harsh criticism due to his recent rise through the ranks in Munster and Ireland. However, the fact remains that Murray has still never played with Sexton, our first choice out half. Similarly, Isaac Boss hasn't played with O'Gara since 2007. Added to that, both of them have played less than 40 minutes between them under Kidney (excluding Boss' experience at the Churchill cup in 2009). It might seem harsh, but O'Leary hasn't played well for a long time and, in my opinion, Boss should have had some game time under Kidney at some point in the last three years. It seems a huge risk to bring two scrum half's who haven't played much under Kidney at all and have either no experience with Sexton or no experience with RO'G since 2007. Reddan will undoubtedly be first choice but I think whoever Kidney thinks is second choice should be starting against England next Saturday to get him match fit pronto. While any one calling Kidney conservative has no leg to stand on after his promotion of McFadden and Murray, you have to wonder about his decision making sometimes. His use of the bench and Alan Gaffney's continued employment spring to mind but his failure to use Boss prior to now and his snail-like approach to SO'B and Mike Ross being others. Still, you have to commend him on making the tough calls eventually. He did drop Hayes and Buckley (kind of) for Ross and brought in Seán O'Brien to the back row. And, despite all the evidence being pointed to Tómas and Fitz being Deccie's long lost children, he has dropped them. Too little too late though? Only time will tell...but Boss will probably be coming off the bench with RO'G come the crucial game against Australia, and you have to wonder how well they'll gel together, and how well they would have gelled had Boss had more game time or even been consistently involved with the squads.

Also, interestingly, it seems Murray was told that he wasn't going to go to the world cup prior to Saturday. If TO'L had just played average he would probably be on the plane now. Amazing how things work out sometimes....

Not sure it's DK's fault cos he wanted to see if his other optinos could regain form.
See where you are coming from though.

I think the idea of Boss coming in to the game after 60 or so with SOB possibly could be fantastic the two link very very well

Declan gave TOL every opportunity to prove himself but he could'nt. I am suprisingly not that worried about the scrum half position coming into the RWC

Sexton is probably first choice - as is Heaslip, and Boss has played with them both plenty for Leinster. He links well with SOB too who is always on his shoulder should he make a dart round the side. So Boss is actually the most credible back-up to Reddan available to Kidney. What does it matter that Boss hasn't played with ROG for a while - both are experienced enough?

I suspect if ROG starts then Murray will also start (probably against Russia) or be on the bench if Reddan starts.

There are six permutations of half backs in the squad (nine including Wallace). Add to that the additional players tried recently such as TOL and Stringer who may have been selected and there are another six. Given that Kidney is trying to build a Test understanding between his first choice half backs under pressure, there simply isn't the opportunity to have played all the permutations.
I'd much rather he did what he has done, which is to give the majority of the gametime to the most likely combinations.