Sean Diffley aims some criticism at Ireland coach Declan Kidney in The Irish Independent.
"There is only one individual in this green, misty and recessioned isle of ours who has never been criticised. Never. I refer to our national rugby coach, Declan Kidney. It's quite an achievement, isn't it? Governments, journalists, farmers, trade unions - an endless list and not necessarily in that particular order raise the ire of all types of critics.
"And critics, of course, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Thomas Beecham, the noted and irascible orchestral conductor, described critics as "drooling, drivelling, doleful, depressing, dropsical drips". Thomas had a way with the letter D, hadn't he?
"But few in the passing centuries have escaped the dropsical down-put - Shakespeare, Mozart, James Joyce, Brian Cowen - they have all shipped their fair quota of disrespect. But there is that unique exception; Declan Kidney.
"However, all good things must come to an end and I gently place myself at the top of the queue to become the first to take issue with Kidney on the composition of his 39-man squad he has nominated for the autumn internationals, the confrontations with Australia, Fiji and South Africa, this November in Dublin."
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