What’s going on with the selection question *seemingly* hanging over Mike Ross this past seven days? The esteemed Whiff Of Cordite brought this up in a blog post yesterday,with Gerry Thornley having twice mentioned in the Irish Times that the selection of Mike Ross against Fiji was essentially a slap on the wrist by Declan Kidney for what he viewed as a poor performance against South Africa.

So that’s one thing, but in today’s IT Thornley went three-for-three by writing “the pack will almost certainly be unchanged from the South African game now that Mike Ross has some more game time“.

Really?

There was really, truly a doubt about Mike Ross, the cornerstone of the Ireland scrum, because he needed 53 minutes against Fiji?

There are a number of possibilities here to explain what’s going on.

a) If W.O. Cordite’s premise is correct, and Kidney has been spinning this line to both Ross and the public directly through Thornley, then while it’s very shoddy handling of a key Irish player questions must also be asked about Kidney’s handling of the whole Michael Bent affair. The Ireland coach made a big fuss about parachuting him into the squad, held him out of a Leinster match against the Ospreys and then didn’t select him for Fiji. Instead he picked Mike Ross for a game in which we would learn nothing about Ross and instead ran every risk of getting a critical Irish player injured.

b) If Gerry Thornley is just flying kites, which other journalists have been known to do, then one would really have to wonder about his professional standards. However, I seriously doubt this is the case because based on his record at least we have known where he’s coming from in the Kidney era and in this regard he’s been a straight shooter.

c) Theoretically there’s a third possibility, that Michael Bent is awful. Supremely, ungodly awful. So awful that Kidney couldn’t pick him to start a match against a Fijian team with a silly tour itinerary in a game that wasn’t even a capped international test match. Given that Bent won player of the year last season and Leinster have gone to the trouble and expense to fly him half way around the world, this is unlikely unless the twice-defending Heineken Cup champions have made an error of Clint Newland class proportions.

So we’re back to Kidney playing silly buggers with a key player. Which is just odd.

While this could be a masterful display of man-management (no, I’m not ruling this out) there’s no doubt that Kidney is under pressure right now. There is a chance that this has been a ham-fisted way of giving the impression of a man in command of his troops.

In a team shorn of key leaders and recognised superstars, Jonathan Sexton and Cian Healy honourably excepted, Kidney publicly going for Ross would certainly send a signal.

The problem is that I’m not sure it’s the one he wanted to send.