This press conference is probably the last thing several Irish players wanted to hear.
Joe Schmidt was flanked by assistant coaches Simon Easterby and Less Kiss at this afternoon’s official, if somewhat tardy, World Cup squad announcement.
The 31-man squad was revealed by the IRFU this morning and it contained a couple of shock selections.
Schmidt has gone with three tightheads [but no Marty Moore], one specialist fullback and two scrum-halves. Andrew Trimble, Felix Jones and Isaac Boss are the big-name casualties.
All the questions, this afternoon, were for Schmidt.
He said, ‘[The bad new phone calls] were probably ones that were more emotional for me than the guys.’ He continued:
‘They knew the deal when they saw my name on the phone… they were resigned to their fate when they answered the phone.’
‘If it wasn’t a big call regarding Andrew Trimble,’ Schmidt reasoned, ‘it would be someone else in the back three.’
He added, ‘We discussed the squad for six hours on Sunday and, for some of those hours, Andrew Trimble was coming to the World Cup with us. For others, he wasn’t.
‘The difficulty for us was that Andrew played 34 minutes for us, 80 minutes for Ulster and, in between, he had hurt his foot again.
‘It interrupted his opportunity again… time ran out for him.’
Schmidt admitted that cutting Ireland’s 2014 Player of the Year was part of ‘the brutal reality’ of Test rugby.
Michael Bent, who misses out despite being able to cover loose and tighthead, was another player who’s name was on the squad-list before it was etched off.
On a lighter note, the Kiwi said Ulster’s Darren Cave had made the squad as he wanted a specialist centre to cover 12 and 13 as the current midfield partnership of Robbie Henshaw and Jared Payne is “manufactured”.
