Foley fills the vacancy as Ireland's folk hero

The withdrawal of Keith Wood from Ireland's team to face Australia on Saturday has left a vacancy. Not just as captain, but on the back seat of the team bus. Anthony Foley, the Munster No 8 and Wood's likely stand-in, is already a back-seat man, so too the mighty second-row Malcolm O'Kelly. But they are getting a little lonely.

A rugby team, like a family, is a living, breathing entity. No matter how strong the emotional ties, no one lasts forever. Wood's absence against the world champions, because of a neck injury, should be temporary. The talismanic hooker, who is considered more or less part of the Irish management these days, may return for the subsequent internationals against Fiji and Argentina.

Last season, two other redoubtable sons of Munster, Peter Clohessy and Mick Galwey, departed the Test stage for good. It is time for others to front up, and claim their place on the back seat.

Last week, when Wood was still rated a possible starter, Ireland took the unprecedented step of naming three vice-captains. They were Foley, David Humphreys, who is not certain to play, and Brian O'Driscoll, who certainly is. But O'Driscoll, genius of the midfield that he is, has yet to graduate from the penultimate row of the bus. "He could slip into the back seat," says Foley, "but I think he's quite comfortable where he is at the moment."

The pecking order is a fun thing in between matches. It gets serious in the nervous moments before kick-off, and positively crucial when battle is joined. Clohessy and Galwey: Claw and Gaillimh. Quantifying their specific contribution to Ireland's tight five in recent years would be tricky enough. The absence of their looming presence in the dressing room is near impossible to transfer to the printed word. "It's weird looking round, and not seeing the pair of them," said Foley. "Other guys will step in to do their job and, who knows, they may do it even better. What Gaillimh and Claw had was a bit of cuteness, a bit of know-how, and they brought a hard edge to our pack, and we just have to get that back. A lot of fellas will have to take a hell of a lot more responsibility on their shoulders over the next few weeks."

For all his 36 caps, and two Heineken Cup finals with Munster, Foley's jowly jaw and tousled mane are less familiar beyond Irish shores than Wood's bald pate or the hangdog features of Clohessy and Galwey. One can imagine him modestly echoing yet another Munster product, Moss Keane, who liked to say that most of his caps came "because they couldn't find anyone else".

But now more than ever, Ireland need to find inspiration in Foley. He has, remarkably, started 27 of the last 28 Tests since being recalled to the side in February 2000 after a three-year gap. A couple of years younger than Wood (Foley celebrated his 29th birthday last Wednesday), they both attended St Munchin's College, Limerick. "We used to live 100 yards from each other," said Foley. "I grew up within his earshot."

Foley does not captain Munster – that is the job of the Australian back-rower Jim Williams, who, incidentally, has been asked by the Wallabies to perform their traditional cap presentation before the match at Lansdowne Road. But he has covered for Wood as Ireland captain before, against Samoa this time last year, and last month in the World Cup qualifier against Georgia. "Woody's our figurehead," said Foley, "but you can't be looking around, hoping somebody else does a job. It's up to individuals to push themselves to the limit." The team, and the captain, will be named on Tuesday.

This is, according to Foley, the second segment of Ireland's season, with the Six Nations' Championship yet to come. Part one was something Thomas Cook might have dreamt up in a bad mood, an eccentric tour from Limerick to Dublin via Siberia, taking in victories over Romania (in a friendly), Russia and the Georgians.

Still, the objective of World Cup qualification was achieved (admittedly, it was unthinkable that it would not be), and Leinster's captain, Reg Corrigan, has settled into Clohessy's loose-head role. "We had seven weeks out of 10 in camp," Foley said. "The wins didn't come in the style we'd have liked, but we're starting to understand each other and become a more cohesive unit." By the time November is out, Ireland will have played three of the four opponents – Australia, Argen-tina and Romania – who will face them in Pool A of next year's World Cup. "It will give us the opportunity to see where we stand," Foley added.

In addition to Wood, injuries have accounted for a clutch of back-five forwards in Paul O'Connell, David Wallace, Eric Miller and Simon Easterby, plus Rob Henderson and Anthony Horgan behind the scrum. Geordan Murphy, a possible match-winner in O'Driscoll's class, was considered not to be match fit, but was called into the squad as cover when Denis Hickie aggravated a hand injury.

While Murphy was playing for Leicester yesterday, Ireland had a rare break, leaving Foley to sit in front of the TV last night to watch Australia play the Pumas in Buenos Aires. The Irish have proved that, on their day, they can beat England and France, but the Tri-Nations nut has yet to be cracked: three defeats in 12 months by New Zealand, and no win over the Wallabies in 11 meetings since 1979. "Australia are an awesome team," Foley said, "with a lot of good ball-handlers, all the way through to Justin Harrison, Austin Healey's friend, in the second row. The front row may be perceived by some as a weakness, but I don't see any weakness in their side.

"We got ourselves into situations against the All Blacks which we were happy with, but we let them back into the game. Maybe in the past we'd look at them as moral victories, but not any more. If we can only start winning against these teams, it may be we will carry on doing it."