The Ireland coach has one rule for his fringe players and another for his go-to guys.
When Joe Schmidt first addressed the press as Ireland head coach, in November 2013, he spoke about building a squad of ’30, 35 players with the ability to play international rugby’.
At the time, Ireland were well down the World Rugby rankings and had just finished their worst ever Six Nations campaign. Ronan O’Gara had retired and Brian O’Driscoll was not far behind.
The common consensus was that Schmidt would do well to cobble a matchday squad together.
It speaks volumes for the Kiwi, then, that he was able to name a 45-man training squad and keep us guessing for so long about the 31 players he would bring to the World Cup.
All that and winning two Six Nations in between. It was unprecedented stuff.
Schmidt made some tough calls along the way – one of them was to cut players from his XV if they had not trained fully by the Tuesday of match-week.
Jamie Heaslip was axed for a Six Nations game against Italy, this year, for that very reason.
And yet, Schmidt appears to show no consistency here.
Johnny Sexton was not fit to play New Zealand in 2013 but his coach, and country needed him. Having strained his hamstring against Australia the week before, the decision to select Sexton was delayed until Friday.
He told his coach he would give it a go and was named in the team.
Sexton’s hamstring flared up again in the game and, to this day, he cites it as a major reason for his missing that crucial penalty with six minutes to go.
When it comes to this World Cup squad, Schmidt has taken a skewed look at his injured players.
Neither Marty Moore or Cian Healy have played a Test match this summer, but the former misses out while the latter is included.
We were told, last week, that Moore had trained fully with the team.
This afternoon, Schmidt may tell us a different story.
It seems, to me (and to people close to the squad that I have spoken to), that both props are far from fit, but the coach needs Healy to travel.
Including White and Furlong [one Ireland start between them] is a glaring indictment on the fact that Mike Ross has been incessantly flogged by the Irish coaching staff.
Did Ross really need to start all three Tests against Argentina [twice] and Georgia last year?
Andrew Trimble misses out despite ticking whatever box his coach wanted him to tick. He played 80 minutes for Ulster at the weekend and scored a try but misses out to Dave Kearney and Keith Earls.
A fit Trimble would have pressed for a starting spot but Schmidt is not convinced.
More importantly, he has settled on Fitzgerald as his left winger, with Tommy Bowe on the right.
The switch-up selection regards Darren Cave making the cut and Ireland going with only two scrum-halves.
Personally, I am happy to see Cave in the squad. He offers more in attack, at centre, than Jared Payne but may have to settle for a start against Romania.
Cave will hopefully get his chance against England this weekend. It might be an idea to give Madigan an outing at scrum-half, off the bench.
As for the fly-halves, sure isn’t Ian Madigan soft putty for an hole that may arise.
If injuries rear their head again – and they will – expect Schmidt to spare sentiment and replace his fall-back options with stealth.
If you are one of his go-to guys, however, he is prepared to wait.
