The Irish Independent's David Kelly looks at the two high profile casualties following the announcement of Ireland's 30-man squad for the World Cup.
"Last Saturday morning, Luke Fitzgerald and Tomas O'Leary collected the last of their personal belongings and checked out of the Shelbourne Hotel before making the short coach journey to Lansdowne Road.
There, they would seek to make one final lasting impression upon Kidney and his coaching staff before the 30 names were appended to an email the next afternoon confirming the final World Cup squad selection.
Those who didn't make the cut would be told personally by Kidney before that.
Both Fitzgerald and O'Leary had experienced the joys of winning the Grand Slam and the Heineken Cup, but this would represent one of the biggest challenges of their professional lives, for the World Cup is the pinnacle of a rugby player's career -- a level to which neither had before managed to ascend."
RSS feed
