Other than Sexton Farrell has full Ireland deck to pick from
Ireland have reported a fully-fit squad for Saturday’s Bank of Ireland Nations Series clash with Italy at the Aviva Stadium.
Head coach Andy Farrell named a 42-man training squad at the end of May in preparation for the World Cup in September and the players have regathered at the IRFU High Performance Centre in Dublin.
Irish Rugby said: “The Ireland squad have stepped up their preparations ahead of Saturday night’s opening game of the Bank of Ireland Nations Series at Aviva Stadium against Italy (8pm).
“In team news, all players reported into camp on Sunday evening and are available for selection for the Bank of Ireland Nations Series.”
After their first warm-up match against Italy, Ireland will play England at Aviva Stadium (August 19) and Samoa in Bayonne (August 26) before their opening World Cup group game against Romania in Bordeaux on September 9.
Captain Johnny Sexton will miss the warm-up fixtures due to a three-match ban, but will be available for their opening World Cup fixture.
The 38-year-old fly-half admitted to a misconduct charge following his row with referee Jaco Peyper at the end of Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle in May, in which he did not play.
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Honestly, I am a bit lost here …. Ireland - RSA was (at least in my opinion) perhaps (from a purely technical / rugby-skills-show point of view) the pinnacle of the RWC2023 - almost flawless playing (putting aside the kicking of RSA which was the difference between the two teams), rugby at it’s very best …. if I were a Bok and after the game some Irish lads came around saying “see you in 5 weeks same place”, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of it as being in any way “arrogant”, rather a sort of jolly “if we both continue to play like this, no one could stop us” - besides, few of us fans would have, at that time, been surprised to see the same teams playing on 23 september and 28 october 2023 ….. well, we all know Ireland chose to hit a slump to keep the QF curse alive …..
Go to commentsThere’s value gleaned from having an All Black star running and training with your team. How many games he starts (or even where he plays in the backline) will be decided on a week by week basis based on the needs for that week. But the overall learning and growth for all concerned, I’d think, is massively beneficial. Especially for Irish players.
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