Rowell's Bath return puts Maggs back in the Test mix

Three months ago, Kevin Maggs was unsure about his future in club rugby, let alone on the international stage. Disenchanted with life at Bath, who had under-performed horribly during his long-term absence with a broken forearm, the ruthlessly physical inside centre was prepared to call it quits on the contractual front, at considerable cost to himself, and look for gainful employment elsewhere. Ireland, he thought, would have to take care of themselves for a while.

What a difference a summer makes. Encouraged by Jack Rowell's return to the Recreation Ground as director of rugby, Maggs re-committed himself to life on the banks of the Avon. As of yesterday, he is also back in the swim at Test level, having been selected ahead of the 2001 Lions midfielder, Rob Henderson, for this weekend's friendly with Romania at Thomond Park in Limerick.

This is a significant feather in Maggs' head-dress, for Henderson, a Munster regular, is one of the most popular figures in that traditional hotbed of the Irish game.

Maggs will partner Brian O'Driscoll, an automatic choice if ever there was one, and assuming all goes well, he can look forward with utter delight to a trip to the wild depths of Russia for a World Cup qualifier later this month.

In all, the Irish have made three changes, one of them positional, to the side that conceded 40 points to the All Blacks in Auckland last June. John Kelly moves from centre to right wing in place of the injured Geordan Murphy, while Denis Hickie plays on the other wing ahead of Justin Bishop. Eric Miller, the outstanding Leinster loose forward, is out of the reckoning with rib trouble, so Simon Easterby and Keith Gleeson continue on the flanks.

There is little doubt that Ireland will beat Russia, and then Georgia, to cement their place in next year's global tournament, and there are some in Limerick who give them an outside chance of making the final. If that turns out to be the case, they will not see too many of their countrymen in Stadium Australia on 22 November, 2003, for only five per cent of tickets for the showpiece conclusion will be available to the general public.

"We're not pretending everyone out there will be doing handstands, and there will be some aggrieved parties," admitted John O'Neill, the chief executive of the Australian Rugby Union, yesterday. The last final, in Cardiff in 1999, was equally dominated by corporate interests, and paid a heavy price as a result. The absence of genuine rugby followers, squeezed out by business clients who could not have distinguished a rolling maul from a Roman orgy, left the Millennium Stadium with a vacuum where the atmosphere should have been. Some lessons are never learned.

Australian rugby is mourning the death of Greg Smith, who coached the Wallabies for two years following Bob Dwyer's departure shortly after the 1995 World Cup. Smith, only 52, had suffered from a brain tumour since 1998. "I have a lot to thank Greg for, as he was the coach who gave me the Wallaby captaincy," said John Eales, the recently retired lock forward who led the Wallabies to their second World Cup a little under three years ago. "I really enjoyed my time with him. It is so sad for the rugby community to have to say goodbye."

Illness forced Smith to hand over the coaching reins to Rod Macqueen far sooner than he would have liked, but he made his mark. In 1996, he guided an inexperienced Wallaby side through an unbeaten 12-match European tour.