Rugby Union: Wallaby tight head for turning

THE Wallabies in Ireland are having to turn Dan Crowley from a tight-head prop into a loose head after calling for a tight head, Matt Ryan, to replace the injured loose head, Tony Daly, and then losing their other loose head, Cameron Lillicrap, writes Steve Bale.

Crowley makes the change when the tourists play Connacht, the weakest of the Irish provinces, in Galway this afternoon. It is enough to make your head, tight or loose, spin and the Australians' did when Daly was followed out of the tour by Lillicrap, whose broken thumb left them without a loose head. Andrew Blades is now being summoned from Sydney in his stead.

At least the Wallabies, led by Troy Coker, should not have the difficulty with Connacht that they did with Munster last week leading to the mass punch-up and double dismissal which besmirched the occasion. Having served his four-day penitence from defeat in Cork, Garrick Morgan lines up again today.

The All Blacks of three years ago would testify that Connacht try to play as physical a game as the Munstermen. But their want of skills, coupled with the loss of English-based players to the Irish Exiles and the resignation only last week of their coach, George Hook (for 'business reasons'), has left them parlously placed to face even the Wallabies' second string.

CONNACHT: A White (St Mary's College); G Curley (Athlone), M Cosgrave (Wanderers, capt), S Tormey (Galwegians), C Leahy (Wanderers); E Elwood (Lansdowne), K Lawless (Clontarf); T Clancy (Lansdowne), W Mulcahy (Skerries), D Henshaw (Athlone), S Jameson (St Mary's), T Coughlan (St Mary's), E Walsh (Dolphin), N Mannion (Lansdowne), M Fitzgibbon (Shannon).

AUSTRALIA: T Kelaher (New South Wales); D Smith, A Herbert (both Queensland), R Tombs, D Junee (both NSW); P Kahl (Queensland), A Ekert (NSW); D Crowley, D Nucifora, M Ryan, G Morgan (all Queensland), W Waugh (NSW), S Scott-Young, T Coker (both Queensland, capt), M Brial (NSW).