Campaign Sport

Luke ready for Croke

By Robin Davey in New Zealand

10:50am Wednesday 10th March 2010

LUKE Charteris has been presented with the best birthday present he could have wished for – his place back in the Welsh team.

The Newport Gwent Dragons lock, 27 yesterday, has reclaimed his place for Saturday’s clash against Triple Crown chasing Ireland – and he expects to be inspired by playing at Croke Park. It will be his first visit to the Gaelic sports stronghold and he can’t wait to experience the atmosphere in the biggest stadium in the Six Nations Championship.

There was an air of mystique about the ground, which accommodated a crowd of 90,566 for an all-Ireland senior football final back in 1961, until it finally opened its doors in 2007 to what some regarded as the ‘infidel’ – rugby union.

Since the introduction of seating in 1966 the capacity has been 82,500, which is 500 more than Twickenham and the Stade de France and 8,000 higher than the Millennium Stadium.

Charteris has endured a fluctuating Six Nations after starting all four games in the autumn series. He was picked against England only to be dropped from the 22 against Scotland, then recalled as a replacement against France, taking over from the injured Deiniol Jones after 24 minutes.

Now the wheel has turned the full circle and he’s excited not just to be back in, but playing at the Irish fortress for the first time.

“I’ve never been to Croke Park before, though I’ve played in front of 20,000 against Munster in Limerick, and the atmosphere will be incredible,” said Charteris.

“But it only inspires you and helps you to raise your game even more in a stadium like that.

“To be out of the 22 completely was a knock. They told me to work on a few things and I did that with the Dragons, it was good I could get back with them and play a few games.

“It’s great to get back in, a big relief because though I had quite a lot of game time against France everyone wants to be in from the start.

“No-one knows until the Tuesday morning but you want to be starting and given the chance, then it’s up to you to go out and keep the slot.”

Charteris and new lock partner Bradley Davies have been challenged by coach Warren Gatland to produce the goods against arguably the best - certainly the most experienced - pairing in the Six Nations when they come up against Lions captain Paul O’Connell and fellow Lion Donncha O’Callaghan.

“The line-out is going to be a massive part of the game,” said Gatland. “The Irish locks are very comfortable if you kick the ball out, they have won between 30-40% of opposition line-outs, they compete and disrupt and they are more than happy with teams kicking the ball out.

“It’s going to be huge for our locks and we need to be more accurate. Jonathan Thomas is settling back in and calling the line-outs and Matthew Rees gives us accuracy and confidence.

“We don’t expect him to last 80 minutes and we had an option to put him on the bench, but it’s better for him to start and see how he can go.”

Charteris recognises the challenge from O’Connell and O’Callaghan and how much is at stake for Wales on Saturday.

“Ireland have got a good line-out, you can’t take that away from them, but Bradley and I complement one another quite well,” he said.

“Bradley is a big, powerful ball carrier and I try to get around the field, too. But we can’t worry about them too much, we’ve been focusing on getting ourselves 100% and hopefully we can put pressure on them as well.

“If we give Ireland a 20-point lead they’ll close out the game, there’s no better team in the world at defending a lead.

“If we lose this one we stay near the bottom of the table, but if we win we’re challenging for second place.”

Martyn Williams on the Ireland clash

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