Following their victory over New Zealand, Ireland will play out their final game of the international season against the United States this weekend.
With two big wins over New Zealand and Argentina now in the books, Ireland will more than likely give a host of front-liners the week off to recover from what has been a very hefty couple of weeks with the Champions Cup ties leading into the November internationals.
Ireland will play a host of World Cup warm-up matches before next year but the competitiveness of the Six Nations really will prevent Joe Schmidt from trialing those on the fringes of Ireland’s squad before next year’s Rugby World Cup.
Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt can only take a squad of 30 players to Japan and most of the squad will have already picked itself with the 23 that lined up for the All Blacks on Saturday all but assured of making the plane.
With Conor Murray, Robbie Henshaw, Sean O’Brien and Dan Leavy all out injured, there aren’t an awful lot of spots left up for grabs so while the United States match will not do an awful lot to move the needle from a public perspective, those within Carton House this week will realise that this could be a big opportunity to make an impression on Joe Schmidt.
Potential Ireland team to play USA
1. Jack McGrath
2. Sean Cronin
3. Andrew Porter
4. Tadhg Beirne
5. Quinn Roux
6. Rhys Ruddock (C)
7. Jordi Murphy
8. Jack Conan
9. John Cooney
10. Joey Carbery
11. Darren Sweetnam
12. Stuart McCloskey
13. Will Addison
14. Andrew Conway
15. Jordan Larmour
Replacements
16. Rob Herring
17. David Kilcoyne
18. Finlay Bealham
19. Iain Henderson
20. Josh van der Flier
21. Luke McGrath
22. Ross Byrne
23. Sam Arnold
