Joe Schmidt will have settled on his team to play France after Tuesday’s training session at Carton House. The matchday 23 will not be announced until Thursday afternoon, however.
Ireland were put through their paces at their Maynooth headquarters, on Tuesday, as Schmidt finalised his team and plans for this weekend’s Six Nations opener against France.
Ireland assistant coach Simon Easterby doubled down on Monday’s IRFU circular that 36 players are all fit and in contention for the trip to Paris. Only Munster prop Dave Kilcoyne is definitely out but provincial teammate James Cronin has already been drafted in as cover.
There was another Munster face at Carton House as Sam Arnold trained with the wider squad. The former Ulster centre has missed out on Munster selection, in January, following a three-game ban he picked up for getting sent off against his old province at Kingspan Stadium.
Arnold is not included in the official Ireland squad but has been in camp for over a week, travelling to Spain for warm-weather training last week.
While the in-house line is often that players only discover they are in the Ireland team on Thursday, the squad will get the gist of the likely XV from the training runs on Monday and Tuesday.
Much of the Ireland team would appear to pick itself – such as the half back pairing of Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton – but there are a few big selection calls looming. Schmidt needs to replace Sean O’Brien at openside and, from the outside, it looked to be a three-man battle between Josh van der Flier, Jordi Murphy and Dan Leavy.
Van der Flier is set to get the No.7 jersey for Saturday’s game after putting in three consecutive 80+ minute games. That would leave Schmidt with a big call, too, for the bench. Murphy and Jack Conan are versatile back row operators so Leavy may miss out on the squad completely.
Cian Healy should get the nod ahead of Jack McGrath, with Schmidt conscious of having a solid scrummager on the bench and prepared to see Ireland home in the second half.
Keith Earls should stave off the likes of Jordan Larmour, Andrew Conway and Fergus McFadden while The Irish Independent is reporting that Leinster lock James Ryan could edge out Devin Toner.
The Ireland team to face France will be announced at 1:45pm on Thursday.
