When Ireland exited the 2011 Rugby World Cup at the hands of Wales at the quarter final stage, there will have been one man in green who despite the nation's obvious disappointment, will have felt the slightest twinge of vindication.
Leinster's 24 year-old winger Luke Fitzgerald – who has missed out on not one, but two World Cup squads in his career – spent the autumn in stellar form for his club and left plenty of question marks over his exclusion from Declan Kidney's eventual thirty-man squad. Those looking at the latest 6 Nations betting should bear this in mind.
Whilst he has 23 caps for Ireland under his belt already – as well as a Lions cap earned in Pretoria – his free-flowing and liberal attitude to playing rugby has left many to wonder whether he can be trusted on the biggest stage of all. The irony of course was that when Ireland found themselves being edged out of the World Cup in October, such a prodigious talent might have been just what was needed against tiring Welsh legs and minds.
In the 2011 Six Nations, he was forced to play fresh off the back of an injury and out of position at full-back for four straight games – only to be dropped, not just from the starting line-up, but from the squad entirely.
Clearly Kidney didn't feel that Fitzgerald offered something that his side would require – but to omit him form proceedings this year could be very foolish indeed. Fitzgerald however, remains philosophical about his World Cup snub and insists that the only thing he can do is continue to shine for Leinster, thereby making his case for inclusion unanswerable.
"There have been a couple of disappointments but the key thing for me is how you bounce back from these things. That's something I'm really focused on," he said.When Ireland exited the 2011 Rugby World Cup at the hands of Wales at the quarter final stage, there will have been one man in green who despite the nation's obvious disappointment, will have felt the slightest twinge of vindication.
Leinster's 24 year-old winger Luke Fitzgerald – who has missed out on not one, but two World Cup squads in his career – spent the autumn in stellar form for his club and left plenty of question marks over his exclusion from Declan Kidney's eventual thirty-man squad. Those looking at the latest 6 Nations betting should bear this in mind.
Whilst he has 23 caps for Ireland under his belt already – as well as a Lions cap earned in Pretoria – his free-flowing and liberal attitude to playing rugby has left many to wonder whether he can be trusted on the biggest stage of all. The irony of course was that when Ireland found themselves being edged out of the World Cup in October, such a prodigious talent might have been just what was needed against tiring Welsh legs and minds.
In the 2011 Six Nations, he was forced to play fresh off the back of an injury and out of position at full-back for four straight games – only to be dropped, not just from the starting line-up, but from the squad entirely.
Clearly Kidney didn't feel that Fitzgerald offered something that his side would require – but to omit him form proceedings this year could be very foolish indeed. Fitzgerald however, remains philosophical about his World Cup snub and insists that the only thing he can do is continue to shine for Leinster, thereby making his case for inclusion unanswerable.
"There have been a couple of disappointments but the key thing for me is how you bounce back from these things. That's something I'm really focused on," he said.
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