English Dandy thinks the Wallabies are out to get him

[mudskipper]

New English Dandy, Shane Geraghty: 'I know Wallabies are out to get me'... and he's not wrong... Geraghty will take some monster hits against Australia – but the man hoping to fill his mentor Mike Catt's boots is not afraid of a the (damage) challenge.

Dandy pictured is not the fore mentioned dandy, Shane Geraghty

Shane Geraghty says he is ready for the challenge of being targeted by the Wallabies today.

An awful lot has happened to England's rugby team since Shane Geraghty suddenly materialised at Twickenham in the spring of 2007 and ran Saturn-like rings round a high-rolling French back division containing such luminaries as Christophe Dominici, Vincent Clerc and Yannick Jauzion. A good deal has happened to Geraghty too, precious little of it a cause for celebration, but when he takes the field against the Wallabies today, it will be as if the last two and a half years never happened. That's the thing about supernovas: they always appear to be shining for the first time.

"I believe I'm the same player I was back in '07, when Brian Ashton picked me for the Six Nations squad," he insists. "I'm still into playing the heads-up rugby Brian instilled in me as a youngster, still willing to give it a go if it's on. I think the Northampton supporters have seen some of that from me this season and I'd like to bring that side of my game to the England set-up."

So he hasn't had his wings clipped by all those Leicester hard-heads running the national team? He won't be spending all afternoon laying on the ball and scrapping with people? "Definitely not," he replies with a soft smile. "I have Brian Smith in there, fighting my corner for me."

Smith, the attack coach, spent time playing for Leicester himself, but he is hardly cut from the same abrasive cloth as Martin Johnson, John Wells and Graham Rowntree. A native Australian, he sees things differently, and he is understandably excited by the potential Geraghty brings on his return to the red-rose fold. He wants the 23-year-old Midlander to spread his wings, not keep them folded.

"I worked with Shane for three years when we were both at London Irish and I know he'll back himself," Smith says. "When the big contests come around, you want people who will play without inhibition. You can't have the kind of player whose instinct is to sit behind the other bloke and wait for him to do whatever it is that needs doing. Shane will take things on himself, and that means he'll take some of the load off Jonny Wilkinson. We have two ball-players at 10 and 12, with ball-runners outside. That's an interesting arrangement for a team who want to play a bit, which we do."

Smith understands better than most that with Geraghty fit, firing and handily positioned outside the refreshed and rejuvenated Wilkinson, there is just a chance that England can build themselves a southern-hemisphere-style "five-eighths", or double-outside-half, midfield arrangement of the kind his own countrymen have used to the greatest possible effect over the last quarter of a century. (Think Mark Ella and Michael Lynagh, or Stephen Larkham and Matt Giteau, or Giteau and Berrick Barnes).

England have been unable to settle on an ideal 10-12 arrangement since winning the World Cup in 2003. Then, Wilkinson's midfield partner was Will Greenwood, the tall, leggy inside centre from Harlequins – a player once described, not inaccurately, as a "Larkham without the kicking game". Greenwood's renowned reluctance to put boot to ball was down to a sharp appreciation of his limitations in that department, but in his case, it never mattered: when a player is blessed with a rugby computer for a brain, he seldom finds himself railroaded into doing things he would prefer not to do. Greenwood was of inestimable value to Wilkinson, using his unerring sense of the currents and eddies and whirlpools of a contest to participate in, and often dictate, the decision- making process.

Yet he was not, and never pretended to be, a "second five-eighth", as the Wallabies and All Blacks would term it. The nearest thing Wilkinson ever had to one of these was Mike Catt, as he acknowledged this week. "I often finished a game thinking 'all I did today was follow Mike's instructions' and many's the time I've thanked him for it," he remarked. Wilkinson's name on an England team sheet may still send ticket prices into orbit, but even in his pomp, he was not the all-seeing genius some people made him out to be.

Geraghty considers himself an outside-half first, and a centre second – a distant second, if truth be told. But he is more than happy to appear with a No 12 on his back at both club and Test level, for the very good reason that he expects to spend a good deal of any game as first receiver. This afternoon a Twickenham full house will see him and Wilkinson mixing and matching, splitting the outside-half role between them in ways that will keep the Wallaby back-rowers guessing.

"A big part of my role is to be Jonny's eyes and ears," he says. "As Mike Catt [with whom he worked closely at London Irish and became a better player for it] used to tell me, it's a matter of the No 12 commentating on a game for the No 10. As an outside-half myself, I know how good it is to have an inside centre capable of talking me through it. The way Jonny and I have been working together in training, I'm there to provide a balance, to be an option for him, to take some of the load off his shoulders by interchanging roles."

This is all fine and dandy: Geraghty is lavishly – perhaps perfectly – equipped to ease the attacking burden on Wilkinson by lighting the blue touchpaper himself on occasion. But can he even begin to match Saint Jonny in the other, less glamorous aspect of the game: defence? Wilkinson is no Barry John or Dan Carter with ball in hand, or even a Giteau. But when it comes to tackling he is comfortably the finest No 10 in the history of the sport, to the extent that opponents stopped running their age-old lines up the outside-half channel and started running at other people instead. Thanks to Wilkinson's brilliance in this area, Geraghty could find a lot of Australian traffic coming his way.

"Yes, I know what's coming from the Wallabies," he says, uncomfortably aware that an inability to stay fit for more than a few weeks at a time has stunted his growth as a player and restricted him to a mere three caps off the bench. (Hamstring issues, knee problems, ankle hassles, a busted hand... Geraghty's injury history does not make encouraging reading for those who believe he could answer one of England's more serious selection issues if he could just operate well enough for long enough.)

"Actually, I feel physically stronger now than at any point in my career. It's been good to put in a run of performances for Northampton, at both centre and outside-half. Jonny knows what it is to pick up injury after injury, but all that frustration hasn't changed the way he defends. He still tackles offensively rather than defensively, still gets around the field knocking people down. Can I do what he does when we don't have the ball? That's a difficult one for any player. But as I expect to see a lot of Australians running at me in this game, I'll find out how strong I am soon enough."

At least he will not be overawed by the sense of occasion, or by the size of the crowd. By moving from London Irish, where good-sized audiences can be lost in the echo chamber of the Madejski Stadium, to Northampton, he guaranteed himself the pleasure – if that is the right word – of performing in a bearpit atmosphere at least once a fortnight. He believes it has worked wonders for his temperament.

"By moving, I unsettled myself," he says. "I put myself in a position where I had to show a new, very demanding set of supporters that I was a good player, that I was deserving of their respect. It was good for me to go through that process. And when there's a really big match at Franklin's Gardens, the noise feeds through to the players and makes it feel like an international. When we played Munster in the Heineken Cup last month, it felt like there were 50,000 in the ground. There's a lot of pressure attached to playing club rugby there, but it's what I thrive on."

He is not short of confidence, but unlike one or two of England's other midfield tyros, it takes the form of a quiet assurance. London Irish, and Catt in particular, did not want Geraghty to leave, but he went anyway. An individual capable of turning his back on the form team in England, and on his own mentor, is unlikely to "sit behind the other bloke", as Smith put it. Even if the other bloke goes by the name of Wilkinson.

Rivals at No 12: England's Dandy contenders

*Olly Barkley He might have been a contender, had successive coaches not messed him around. A natural game manager with a high-class kicking game, he saved England's bacon against the United States in the 2007 World Cup but has barely been seen since.

Andy Farrell Recruited from rugby league when everyone "oop" north considered him past his best, Farrell's transparent lack of pace ensured the project would end in tears.

Riki Flutey A success in some eyes, but he is not in favour with the regime after moving to France, then playing injured and doing himself a further mischief.


http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/r...e-1816605.html