IRELAND TODAY UNVEILED their team to face Wales and, hopefully, deliver a response after a trouncing at the hands of England last weekend. Here is the team in full, and below some of our snap reactions to it.
Carty’s late call
Having made his Test debut in late February, Connacht’s chief playmaker will start his first international on the day of his 27th birthday this Saturday.
It is a deserved, and delayed, call to the front line for Jack Carty who has excelled in Connacht’s attack in recent years before an upturn in his goal-kicking earned him a call-up to the Ireland setup.
The Roscommon man is vying with Ross Byrne for a third out-half slot in the Ireland squad for Japan. But with injury doubts still hovering over Joey Carbery and Jonathan Sexton yet to prove his fitness, the less experienced 10s in the pecking order may yet have a big part to play in the coming months.
Building the minute-count that denotes experience is important for the out-half hopefuls then. Joe Schmidt lamented not having more time to give either Carty or Byrne minutes on the field with the World Cup looming beyond two friendlies against Wales. However, the Leinster man was an unused member of the touring part to Australia last summer and Carty clocked up 31 minutes during a Six Nations campaign that quickly got beyond Ireland.
The Connacht star has racked up 57 minutes over the two Tests this month, but a start will give him a much improved platform to work from and show his wares. And with no other recognised 10 in the squad, he could get an extended run before Schmidt reveals a possible alternative out-half.
Last week, Schmidt called it a ‘fair assessment to view Carty as a stylistic understudy to Carbery, while Byrne is more akin to Sexton. It will be intriguing to see whether Carty’s terrific attacking skill-set will be given license to ignite an Ireland attack that has looked decidedly blunt this year.
The Beirne Supremacy
Having been used as a replacement back row in the opening two warm-ups, today’s team announcement is the clearest indication yet that Schmidt is leaning towards including Tadhg Beirne among his four locks for Japan.
The Munster man is now firmly in the slot marked 4/6, while this XV sees Iain Henderson slot into a dynamic looking second row partnership with James Ryan.
After his international days began with two pretty pedestrian outings, Jean Kleyn has dropped out of the matchday squad and his viability in the World Cup appears to have dramatically decreased.
Back three picture
There is better news for another adopted Munster man. Back three places are at an absolute premium and Andrew Conway is steadily proving to the head coach that he is an invaluable, assured presence both in the air and on the ground in attack mode.
Jacob Stockdale will hope to restore a little faith in his defensive reading on the other wing after his willingness to shoot was exploited viciously by England in Twickenham. His provincial team-mate Will Addison is given a chance to show his wares at fullback on his first outing of the season and Dave Kearney is in reserve, but you feel either would be a serious shock of a bolter if they made the plan from this juncture.
O’Mahony’s move
Injury to Dan Leavy and Sean O’Brien was always going to leave Schmidt stretched for a number 7 at some point and this weekend is the game where the head coach will show his contingency plans.
With Beirne and Peter O’Mahony in the back row, Ireland not only have an array of line-out options to correct course after their travails at Twickenham, but there is a serious turnover threat at the breakdown.
While the selection this weekend has the dials pointing in a positive direction for Beirne, O’Mahony popping up at number 7 is likely bad news for the other versatile back rows such as Rhys Ruddock, Jordi Murphy and possibly even CJ Stander.
O’Mahony, of course, has experience on the openside of the back row having excelled there during the series win over Australia, but he will resume blindside duties when it comes to selecting a strongest XV for Ireland.
Just one warm-up left
Maybe the outcomes of these warm-up fixtures don’t matter a jot, maybe the form promised is fleeting and 50-point drubbings will be made worthless by events to come at the World Cup proper. But they must serve some purpose with all the forward leaps sports science has made to influence selection of teams on this island.
If World Cup warm-ups are valuable for, y’know, warming players up ahead of a tournament then the preparation window for the men who have not yet featured this month is getting tight.
It feels like every time a big match is on the horizon we’re fretting about the gap Jonathan Sexton has to bridge between this outing and his last. The previous confidence-shaking loss to England – on Six Nations opening weekend – saw Sexton pitch up after six weeks out of action. Schmidt suggested that his star playmaker could potentially have played against Italy having ‘trained well on the Friday’. He wasn’t ready to face England at Twickenham and the head coach’s stated plan to get him 25 minutes this weekend is now shelved too.
No need to worry though, right? He’ll be flying fit next week, right? And we’ll hit the ground running against Scotland…
Robbie Henshaw and Keith Earls are the other two men in the same boat as Sexton, waiting on a warm-up appearance. It’s difficult to be optimistic of starting the tournament all guns blazing when three main totems of the back-line have not been seen together since the first Test of the year.
There’s a lot of those Irish players who are more comfortable on Instagram and twitter than on a rugby pitch.
@Treaty Bhoy: why do you do it
@Treaty Bhoy: absolutely.
‘This is rugby country’ lol. Bring back the hurling quick
@Frank Scanlon: Game of the people I think it was called
@Frank Scanlon: Love Guinness but that disgusting add nearly put me off it.
@mar: love the drink, but Diageo makes me want to avoid drinking it anymore. So much tripe
Too much faith in old legs time to tell Rory stay at home
So has the penny finally dropped, Stone Age tactics finally well and truly found out, just like Jack Charlton in his final days, past his sell by date
@Paul O Neill: We do not offload Joe does not seem to trust the players to do it. We do not counter attack from the back 3, we do not use 2 play makers to open up play, and we depend on possession retention so we have to out mussel teams we are not capable of doing that to physically stronger teams like England NZ and SA. This we all knew before today.
However our line out and defense was appalling, the amount of space we ceded was crazy. The line out I think is fixable with practice and different personnel. However the defense really worries me, we were beaten on the inside and outside, there looked to be no structure.
I fear this world cup came 12/18 months too late many players are aging and losing form, quarter final exit again.
Conway, Beirne, Carty & Marmion all need to start the next game. Move Larmour into 15 as Kearney is only fit for a cameo in this world cup.
@Richard: 3 out of that 4 are nowhere near good enough. Won’t mention names because I think we both know
@Ollie Watson: carty? Ammaright? The Connacht goat should just be given the reins off the great pretender Sexton already.
@Ollie Watson: actually 4 out of 4 are nowhere near international standard.
@BrianBoru: I’ll admit Marmion mightn’t exactly be world class but if he’s going to be in the 31 then it makes sense to start him. Regarding the other three if Carty and Beirne aren’t going to get a start in light of what we’ve just witnessed, I honestly dunno. And Conway is certainly international standard, if Larmour and Kearney are adjudged to be by yourself.
@Richard: Marmion should have been at the last world cup ahead of Redden, and he has been part of Ireland’s best performances when he has been give a chance. Unfortunately, a crocked Murray is often kept ahead of him, ala Wales game a few years back.
@Joe Vlogs: that game v Wales, when Murray got crocked was a very costly game, because Murray’s injury was made far worse by sending him back out to play on. He should have been immediately removed and not allowed to play again until the latter part of this season’s 6N. He has never been the same since but Joe keeps on flogging him.
A sobering defeat. It could be a blessing in disguise. There are men in the team that can’t question Joe if they get dropped now.
Apparently Murray was never meant to return to the field of play. They couldn’t even get a substitution right today.
The only thing worse than the performance, was Stockdale’s hair .
I think what will be most telling will be how we manage to bounce back next week. NZ got bossed around by AUS the other week, conceded 47 points and then kept them to 0 the following week. Can Ireland have a dramatic change in performance like that??!! Every team misfires, and that could certainly be excused on a first outing of the season, but if we are this flat for the next 2 weeks , then there is obviously major major concern.
@Ciaran O’ Donoghue: first outing of season post a gruelling camp and a week that they appeared to have trained hard in rather than winding down for the Test… they looked understandably tired
@Ciaran O’ Donoghue: couldn’t have said it better myself. That will truly be the real test, of Ireland gets hammered again, that spells really bad news and no sign of change or adjustment to game plan.
Today was painful to watch!
Throws were lost with Toner jumping as well, lets not fall again into that old misbelief that everything is fine in the lineout with Toner. We had a terrible lineout throughout the 2017 Six Nations with Toner present throughout until that final England game when POM stepped in for Heaslip and Toner was dropped.
@Rochelle: for all Rory Best’s qualities, his darts have always been inconsistent with the possibility of a nightmare day. Joe will have seriously look at Scannell off the back of this. Won’t succeed in Japan if our lineout fails
I know it probably has feck all to do with it but ever since Joe announced he was leaving things have not been the same
Surely nobody is deluded enough to think that this team can get past quarter finals, Schmitt exit can’t come quick enough
@Paul O Neill: will do well to get to quarters. So much for the conveyor belt of talent; conveyor belt of inflated egos more like it
@Paul O Neill: don’t worry if joe goes back to his old ways and picks, Cronin, toner, Ryan, Sexton, Ruddock, henshaw and Conan we’ll get back to winning ways.
@Chris Mc: he doesn’t pick Cronin though, and Henshaw is not an improvement. Agree with the others though…really feel ruddock deserves to be in ahead if pom
Ah lads calm down… was it not obvious that this team took to the field physically tired without the normal wind down in training you’d expect for a test match. They met a top team at a different point in their preparations- England looked physically energetic & lively, and we looked exhausted after 15mins. England knew this would be the case and played high tempo to try and inflict a deflating defeat… it worked. Up to the management now to keep the heads up and the prep going and get the bodies in peak shape for Start of World Cup
@BMJF: it’s fine for them to loose a match like that. What’s not acceptable is to lose with more than 50 points on them. Seriously think Joe is still backing his tactics from 2018.
Rugby like every sport is ever changing, and your game plan has to be evolving constantly as well.
The All Blacks are a prime example of a team that changes to match surprises and new threats posed to them.
@Aaron Tynan: today’s loss was nothing to do with tactics… we actually made some good carries but look how slow players were to get to breakdown, how slow they were to tackle to get back into a. Defensive line – They were physically knackered. Rugby is a game of physicality and we got hammered in those stakes but also England played at a tempo the tired boys couldn’t live with. Hard to play against that with lead in your legs
@BMJF: A coach has no business flogging his team to exhaustion leading up to a Test match against one of the biggest teams in rugby in 30 degree weather. The knock-on effect of that is they will not fully recover before the match v Wales and go in under-cooked to suffer a probable second humiliation. If he plays the same 23 they’ll be wrecked, if he plays a whole new set of starters they’ll probably be underprepared and not good enough.
My team for next week;
15 Addison
14 Conway
13 Farrell
12 Henshaw
11 Earls
10 Carty
9 Marmion
1 Kilcoyne
2 Scannell
3 Ryan
4 Ryan
5 Toner
6 Beirne
7 Murphy
8 Conan
16 Herring
17 Mcgrath
18 Porter
19 Henderson
20 Ruddock
22Mcgrath
22 Sexton (needs minutes)
23 Ringrose
Most of todays squad dont deserve another run out!!
John Cooney x
There’ll be no semi this year lads
Why can’t our forwards accelerate onto the ball instead of taking it from a standing start? Solve that riddle and you’ll actually breach the gainline which solves an awful lot of problems.
Horrific ,players need to be dropped 5678
Dogsh!t
Same auld game plan from Joe we are so predictable, one out rubbish no depth no one running at pace into space. Passive defense, lineout was a joke Rory should have retired.
I was optimistic at half time but that was a killing!
Hopefully it’s all because they are being flogged in training.
Seems like confidence is very, very low which is the biggest concern.
The players never owned up to the awful 6 nations earlier in the year.
Hopefully they will take an honest read on where they are now in and do what they can to fix things.
Hard to pick out individuals as they were all awful. Only explanation can be dead legs from heavy training schedule.
Joe will still pick the old reliables when it comes to the WC. Feels like the end of the O Sullivan era where it was harder to get dropped from the team than it was to get into it.
Serious freshening up is needed!
Maybe one of the bowlers from the Irish cricket team can throw the ball into the line out!
Lots of people calling for Carty to start against Wales. No. Sexton has to start. He can’t go into the Scottish game with no minutes in his legs. We have to start with Sexton and Murray and all the players who looked ring rusty today. I’m sure knows his 31 now, or at least very close to it. In one of the next two games we need to play our strongest 15 from the start and close to it in the other.
Serious question marks now. Game plan the same as always. No change up in how we play. The biggest worry is how players will still be picked no matter how bad they play…..
We were missing 4 world class players – Ryan , Sexton , Earls and Henshaw , take 4 of England’s out I.e Itoje , Vunipola , Farrell and Tuilagi – Would it be a different game ???
@Gareth Ward: Keith Earls is not world class. He wasn’t even good enough to make the last Lions squad.