Ciarán Kennedy Reports from Paris

ANDY FARRELL BRUSHED off any concerns around Mack Hansen’s fitness after naming the winger in his starting XV for Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final date with New Zealand.

Despite coming out of last weekend’s defeat of Scotland with a number of injury concerns, head coach Andy Farrell was able to name an unchanged starting XV when announcing his team in Paris today.

Hansen was the main concern after picking up a calf injury against Scotland and while the winger sat out training in Paris yesterday, Farrell is confident the winger is ready to go this weekend.

“He is, yeah. He obviously had a few things to do at the beginning of the week, he’s coming good and everyone is very confident that he’s going to be fine for the game, no problems.”

James Lowe is also included after suffering an eye injury against Scotland which forced him off at half time, but with his vision improving over the last few days he’s been cleared to play.

There is no place from Robbie Henshaw or Keith Earls. Earls suffered a hamstring strain which meant he wasn’t available for the Scotland game but trained with Ireland on Tuesday. Henshaw also trained yesterday as he stepped up his recovery from a hamstring injury, and Ireland are hopeful he will be fit for a potential semi-final.

James Ryan, who came off the bench against Scotland, saw a specialist after suffering a wrist/hand injury during the game, but doesn’t make the matchday 23.

“First, people have always got injuries and bangs and knocks, and the start of the week is always ‘is this going to turn around?’ Some turnaround a lot quicker than you would expect etc. That’s just rugby and a general week.

“So, it is what it is and then as far as Keith Earls is concerned, it was a little too quick for him this week, so he’ll get back to the rehab. We’re very confident that if we push on through in the competition that he’ll be fit for next week.

It was exactly the same with Robbie Henshaw, probably a little bit too soon. They’re progressing through, both of them, and James Ryan is out with a wrist injury that is being sorted. We expected to also be fit for next week if we’re able to get that far.”

With Ryan out, Iain Henderson and Tadhg Beirne continue in the second row, with 22-year-old Joe McCarthy named on the bench.

McCarthy has featured just once at the World Cup so far, playing 80 minutes in the pool stage win against Romania. The lock has been capped four times, with Farrell handing him a debut against Australia last November. The Leinster lock is joined on the bench by another fresh face with Jimmy O’Brien primed to make his first apperance of the tournament.

“With James out, it leaves a spot there and just how he’s (McCarthy) progressed and his fight and his want to be involved is very evident to us all throughout, not just the pre-season and the warm-up games, but since he’s not been playing over the last couple of weeks.

We keep seeing him grow the whole time and it’s time for him to be out into a big game like this. He’s certainly going to add to our performance when he comes off the bench.

“And Jimmy, what you don’t probably realise is that Jimmy got a knock on his shoulder during the Samoa game and he was certainly out for the first two games of the World Cup for us. But there’s one thing about Jimmy O’Brien, he’s unbelievably smart, nice and cool and calm and collected, unbelievably fit and he’s unbelievably good at fitting in in numerous different positions, so with the little bit of disruption that we’ve had at the start of the week it just makes more sense for us to go with that option.”

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Farrell added that there’s been no notable shift in mood around the camp this week ahead of the biggest game of his time in charge.

“It’s the same mood, it’s the big boy stuff, it’s the business end of the competition and when you get to those points within a competition then you draw hopefully on good experiences that you’ve had and the experiences that we’ve put ourselves under in the last three or four years are there were for moments like this.

“We’ve got a very experienced group that’s been through a lot and learning to deal with weeks like last week and this week is something that we’ve got pretty good at so we draw on those experiences.”