Ireland squad cut to 43 as Ultan Dillane and Rory Scannell depart

Joe Schmidt has named an extended 43-man squad for the first of Ireland's Summer Series matches on Saturday.

Ireland play Conor O'Shea's Italy at the Aviva Stadium at 2pm, they then have a week off before playing England in Twickenham on August 24th. A week later they visit Cardiff to play Wales before ending their World Cup preparations with a home match, again against Wales on September 7th.

Schmidt's team kick-off their Rugby World Cup campaign on September 22nd versus Scotland, and will bring a 31 man squad to the tournament in Japan.

On Monday morning the IRFU confirmed that their 45-man training squad had been cut to 43 - with Connacht lock Ultan Dillane and Munster back Rory Scannell returning to their provinces.

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There are 23 forwards named and 20 backs - with Munster's South African secondrow Jean Kleyn still in contention after Dillane's departure. Kleyn and his Munster teammate Mike Haley remain the only uncapped players in camp.

Ahead of the Italy match the squad have returned to their usual Maynooth training base after completing five weeks of pre-season training.

That’s consisted of two training weeks at Carton House, a week at Connacht Rugby’s base in Galway, a week in UL at Munster’s training base and a week at the IRFU’s new High Performance Centre in west Dublin, along with two “regeneration weeks” in between.

Forwards (23)

Finlay Bealham (Buccaneers/Connacht) 9 caps
Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster) 117 caps
Tadhg Beirne (Lansdowne/Munster) 5 caps
Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster) 14 caps
Sean Cronin (St Mary's College/Leinster) 68 caps
Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster) 33 caps
Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster) 88 caps
Iain Henderson (Queens University/Ulster) 44 caps
Rob Herring (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 7 caps
Dave Kilcoyne (UL Bohemians/Munster) 29 caps
Jean Kleyn (Munster) 0 caps
Jack McGrath (St Marys College/Leinster) 54 caps
Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne/Ulster) 27 caps
Tommy O'Donnell (UL Bohemians/Munster) 12 caps
Peter O'Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster) 57 caps
Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster) 14 caps
Rhys Ruddock (Lansdowne/Leinster) 21 caps
James Ryan (UCD/Leinster) 17 caps
John Ryan (Cork Constitution/Munster) 18 caps
Niall Scannell (Dolphin/Munster) 14 caps
CJ Stander (Shannon/Munster) 31 caps
Devin Toner (Lansdowne/Leinster) 64 caps
Josh van der Flier (UCD/Leinster) 17 caps

Backs (20)

Will Addison (Enniskillen/Ulster) 3 caps
Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht) 17 caps
Ross Byrne (UCD/Leinster) 2 caps
Joey Carbery (Clontarf/Munster) 18 caps
Jack Carty (Buccaneers/Connacht) 3 caps
Andrew Conway (Garryowen/Munster) 12 caps
John Cooney (Terenure College/Ulster) 8 caps
Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster) 77 caps
Chris Farrell (Young Munster/Munster) 5 caps
Mike Haley (Munster) 0 caps
Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster) 37 caps
Dave Kearney (Lansdowne/Leinster) 17 caps
Rob Kearney (UCD/Leinster) 90 caps
Jordan Larmour (St Mary's College/Leinster) 13 caps
Kieran Marmion (Galwegians/Connacht) 25 caps
Luke McGrath (UCD/Leinster) 10 caps
Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster) 72 caps
Garry Ringrose (UCD/Leinster) 20 caps
Jonathan Sexton (St Marys College/Leinster) 83 caps
Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster) 19 caps