Updated 13.10

LEINSTER’S SOUTH AFRICAN-born hooker Richardt Strauss is one of four uncapped players called up to the Ireland squad for next month’s Guinness Series internationals.

The 26-year-old, who was one of the stars of Leinster’s Heineken Cup successes in 2011 and 2012, becomes eligible to represent Ireland next month and has been included in Declan Kidney’s 31-man panel for the November tests.

Ulster duo Iain Henderson and Luke Marshall and Munster’s David Kilcoyne are the other new faces ahead of the games against South Africa and Argentina in the Aviva Stadium and against Fiji in Thomond Park.

But there is no place for Rob Kearney who is set to have surgery on a back injury tomorrow and is expected to miss eight to ten weeks, Kidney said.

Kidney will wait until after this weekend’s RaboDirect Pro12 action before finalising his panel and will add “at least one more back and probably a prop to the squad after the weekend,” the IRFU said.

There are new faces too in the backroom staff, with Munster assistant Anthony Foley brought in as defence coach while Leinster’s Greg Feek will work as scrum coach. Both Foley and Feek will continue on their provincial roles outside the international windows.

Discussing his decision to bring Strauss in, Kidney said that the South African’s form merits a place in the squad despite fierce competition at number two.

In Ireland we’re quite fortunate in the hooking position. Damien Varley, Mike Sherry, Sean Cronin have gone well for us. In that respect, it couldn’t say it was a no-brainer because that would be disrespectful to everything they’ve done.

I think Richardt has been playing well over a period of time and he’s backed that up with the way he started the season as well then this year. He certainly merits his position but it’s one of those positions we have quite a bit of competition for.

Henderson, Marshall and Kilcoyne have all impressed Kidney with their provincial form this season and the trio of rising stars help strike a balance between youth and experience, Kidney explained.

“Iain obviously had a very good Under-20 World Cup and we told him to come in to our September camp for a bit of experience, to see how he’d measure up. In fairness to him, he settled in well over the two days and he’s taken his opportunities with Ulster quite well.

“Likewise with David Kilcoyne, we like the way he’s going with Munster too.

“In terms of Luke’s position, obviously we just need to concentrate on the November matches but it’s also within the job to make sure that Ireland has a squad going forward.

We have a number of guys playing well in the centres — James Downey, Paddy Wallace, Gordon D’Arcy in fairness to him stood up to the mark last weekend. We feel it’s incumbent to have a group coming through, we don’t want the three of those disappearing at the one time and having nobody, so Luke is in the squad there. We feel that he really went well in the early part of the season.

He added: “We think the age profile then of the rest of the squad is pretty good. We have some experienced fellas, you can see a couple of guys there who are well over the 100 caps, but the job is to make sure that it’s never cyclical, that you try to be as smooth as possible in bringing guys through.”

Ireland squad: Rory Best, Tommy Bowe, Darrren Cave, Tom Court, Gordon D’Arcy, Keith Earls, Stephen Ferris, Cian Healy, Jamie Heaslip, Iain Henderson, Chris Henry, David Kilcoyne, Luke Marshall, John Muldoon, Conor Murray, Mike McCarthy, Fergus McFadden, Kevin McLaughlin, Donncha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell, Brian O’Driscoll (c), Ronan O’Gara, Peter O’Mahony, Eoin Reddan, Mike Ross, Donnacha Ryan, Jonny Sexton, Richardt Strauss, Andrew Trimble, Dan Tuohy, Simon Zebo.

Declan Kidney names his Ireland squad today, here’s what to expect