There was a sense of scramble and tension at Carton House this afternoon as Ireland prepared to name their final match-day squad of the Six Nations.
Just about every reporter and journalist in the room was caught on the hop and ‘Unchanged’ headlines were hastily deleted. The fourth estate is supposed to get the Ireland team, embargoed, an hour before it is shared with the public.
Today, it arrived four minutes before Joe Schmidt took his seat with the 23 lucky names on an A4 sheet.
Joe Schmidt admits there were late changes made to the Ireland team after this morning's final training session
— Pat McCarry (@patmccarry) March 16, 2017
Three changes to the starting XV from Cardiff and five changes overall. Schmidt provided us with injury updates and some were more worrying than others.
Both Conor and Rob trained fully on Tuesday but they were ruled out this morning after the final session before squad selection. Schmidt said:
“We fitness tested him today and just felt that he wasn’t going to be quite 100%.
“Not that he couldn’t function, just that once contact came back in and he got more bruising on top of bruising on that shoulder, we just felt that if we lost him early in the game, then you’re vulnerable.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity for Kieran Marmion.”
He continued, “[Without Murray], you lose his experience of 56 caps. You lose his calm… you lose a defender who is incredibly good at organising other people and himself.”
Iain Henderson has been selected on form, with Devin Toner benched, but the news on Rob Kearney [replaced by Jared Payne] was not so good. Schmidt said:
“Rob Kearney has a knee injury and is unavailable to train… He’s going to see a specialist… It’s something that needs further investigation and hopefully won’t be too serious.
One hopes that Kearney’s season will not be impacted too much by his latest injury blow.”
