Rugby Union: Hurdler Walker takes wing

FROM the moment he resumed rugby in September after 10 years of athletics, the Olympic hurdler, Nigel Walker, looked international material. Even so, yesterday's elevation, after just 20 appearances for Cardiff, into the Wales team to play Ireland at Cardiff Arms Park a week tomorrow completes one of the more remarkable comebacks in sport.

Walker for Wayne Proctor - a 20-year-old wing, relegated to the A team who play the Irish next Friday, displaced by a 29-year-old - was an obvious move, particularly now that England and Scotland are out of Wales's way. Less obvious was that the selectors would restrict themselves to this one change.

Likewise the Irish, who introduce Eric Elwood at stand-off instead of the unfortunate Niall Malone, whose Test career stands at two matches, one fewer even than Proctor's. Most observers believe Ireland's half-back problems to have emanated from Michael Bradley, the captain, rather than his junior partner. Elwood, 24 today, is a tidy rather than spectacular player in his second season with Lansdowne after leaving Galway for Dublin.

Ireland derived more encouragement from their improvement against France than Wales could from their desultory show in Scotland. Neil Jenkins, the outside-half, and half the pack can consider themselves fortunate, though Alan Davies, the coach, explained his continuing faith by pointing to the lack of alternatives.

'We had a seven-and-a-half hour meeting at which we went through every area, but we looked through all the options and all of the players in competition with those in the team and decided to pick the same set of forwards,' he said. 'The root of the problem (at Murrayfield) was the attitude on the day.'

By this Davies meant that after the upper against England, the Welsh players were more or less inevitably on a downer at Murrayfield. Which is another way of saying there was a degree of complacency: Wales had desperately wanted to beat England (and did) but perhaps expected to beat Scotland (and didn't).

To make the team Walker has raced as hard as he did in 30 appearances as a 110 metres hurdler for Great Britain. Last year a back injury and failure to make the Barcelona Olympics persuaded him to retire from athletics and try his luck with Cardiff, a speculation from which he has already accumulated 14 tries in the Heineken League and 24 in all matches.

Walker is a contemporary and compatriot of another Olympian, Colin Jackson (fastest 100m hurdler in the world this year); indeed at one time he was at least Jackson's equal and sometimes his superior. Walker was a semi-finalist at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

'I don't think I'll be as nervous as I was in LA when I walked out for the semi-final; my knees were literally knocking,' he said yesterday. 'But for pride and passion nothing ranks with this. To be picked to wear the Welsh jersey is the dream of every rugby player in Wales.'

As a long-ago final Welsh Schools trialist, Walker has a decent rugby pedigree, but when he joined Cardiff he aimed no higher than the second team. Events - notably his own undiminished feel for the game even after a decade's absence - transpired to fuel a series of new and rising ambitions. Three weeks ago he scored three tries for Wales A against the Netherlands.

Walker will be marked by Richard Wallace, the Irish selectors having switched their wings in view of Wallace's discomfort on the left facing Philippe Saint-Andre last Saturday. Now it is Simon Geoghegan's turn to play on the wrong side, which could be seen as a form of retribution for his recent outburst against Irish inadequacies.

WALES (v Ireland, Cardiff, 6 March): M Rayer (Cardiff); I Evans (Llanelli, capt), M Hall (Cardiff), S Gibbs (Swansea), N Walker (Cardiff); N Jenkins (Pontypridd), R Jones (Swansea); R Evans (Llanelli), N Meek (Pontypool), H Williams- Jones (South Wales Police), Gareth Llewellyn (Neath), A Copsey, E Lewis (Llanelli), S Davies, R Webster (Swansea). Replacements: R Moon (Llanelli), A Clement (Swansea), A Lamerton (Llanelli), J Davies (Neath), M Perego (Llanelli), P Arnold (Swansea).

IRELAND: C Clarke (Terenure College); R Wallace (Garryowen), V Cunningham (St Mary's College), P Danaher (Garryowen), S Geoghegan (London Irish); E Elwood (Lansdowne), M Bradley (Constitution, capt); N Popplewell (Greystones), T Kingston (Dolphin), P Clohessy (Young Munster), P Johns (Dungannon), N Francis (Blackrock College), P O'Hara (Constitution), M Galwey (Shannon), D McBride (Malone). Replacements: B Glennon (Lansdowne), R Saunders (London Irish), N Malone (London Irish), S McKinty (Bangor), P McCarthy (Constitution), J Murphy (Greystones).