Each of the four senior players would have got a phone-call from Joe Schmidt ahead of Tuesday’s announcement.
Warren Gatland has been in touch with national team coaches from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. He reached out to the unions too. He then put the word out to between 10 and a dozen players that missed out on the British & Irish Lions squad.
Those players are on the stand-by list. We know Garry Ringrose is on it and we know Joe Launchbury is on it. After that, it is educated guess work.
Four Irish players that would have had hopes of making the Lions squad now know their chance looks gone. The quartet of Irish players were discussed on the latest episode of The Hard Yards rugby podcast [from 24:50] but there was hope for a few of their international teammates.
By omitting Donnacha Ryan, Andrew Trimble, as well as Jamie Heaslip and Rob Kearney – a pair of men both recovering from injuries sustained in March – Schmidt has effectively confirmed what some has suspected.
“Now they are not going on the tour, and are not going to be match fit,” I asked Ferris and McLaughlin, “does that put them out of the reckoning for the Lions?”
McLaughlin agreed and spoke about the Irish players that do look likely as Gatland’s reserves – Ringrose, Simon Zebo, Keith Earls, Cian Healy and even Devin Toner. He added:
“They are the ones that will be in the mix. I don’t think Warren Gatland is going to go with anyone who is not match fit.
“He has drawn a line in the sand, apart from [captain] Sam Warburton, who I think he’d pick even if he was on one leg.”
Interestingly, Sean Cronin is another established Ireland international not touring this summer.
Some, including Ronan O’Gara, had tipped ‘Nugget’ as a possible bolter but he may use the summer to get his body in prime shape for a full-on tilt at 2017/18.
