Joe Schmidt may not be able to call on a couple of key men but he still has a range of exciting options.
A large panel of Ireland players met at Carton House over the weekend. Most have been capped for Ireland but a few had yet to earn the honour.
Two of the new faces at the Kildare training base were Connacht centre Bundee Aki and Munster outhalf Tyler Bleyendaal. Both men will be eligible to represent Ireland later this season (January for Bleyendaal) under the soon-to-be-lengthened World Rugby residency rules.
We've waited so long for this https://t.co/IZV8AXm09H
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) August 22, 2017
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt will also be able to choose on the Connacht duo of Jake Heenan and Tom McCartney [pictured below] while he is also likelier to call up Chris Farrell, JJ Hanrahan and James Hart should their form merit it.
All three are recent returnees to the provincial game having been snapped up by Munster earlier this year.
Over the summer, Schmidt also gave run-outs to new faces such as Dave Heffernan, Andrew Porter, Rory O’Loughlin, Kieran Treadwell, James Ryan, Rory Scannell, John Cooney and Jacob Stockdale.
Robbie Henshaw and Garry Ringrose are unlikely to feature in the November Series matches against South Africa, Fiji and Argentina. The XV to face The Springboks in the opening match of the series will look a good bit different from the one that took to the field against England in the final Six Nations game of the 2017 campaign.
Earlier this summer, we selected an Ireland XV that we would like to see take on South Africa. Now that Schmidt has assembled his first crop of players and set goals for the season ahead, we are only going to veer slightly off script.
With Paddy Jackson withdrawn from the fray until the conclusion of a current legal case, Joey Carbery gets the back-up outhalf role. Bleyendaal could well get a chance or two in 2018. We would still go with Johnny Sexton at 10.
We would go with Aki from the get-go and see how he fares on the Test stage. If Henshaw has not recovered from injuries he sustained on the Lions Tour, we would give Farrell a go in the 13 jersey.
IRELAND [vs. South Africa]
15. Jared Payne
14. Keith Earls
13. Chris Farrell
12. Bundee Aki
11. Simon Zebo
10. Johnny Sexton
9 Conor Murray
1. Jack McGrath
2. Rory Best (c)
3. Tadhg Furlong
4. Ultan Dillane
5. Iain Henderson
6. Peter O’Mahony
7. Sean O’Brien
8. CJ Stander
Replacements: Niall Scannell, Healy, John Ryan, James Ryan, van der Flier, Marmion, Bleyendaal, Andrew Conway.
We would then love to see the likes of Porter, McCartney, Rory Scannell, Luke McGrath, Jack Conan and Stockdale get a run out against the Fijians the following week.
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