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Further pruning of the Irish squad will take place next week following the first of four warm-up games against Italy at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday. In what seems like death by a thousand cuts, Ultan Dillane and Rory Scannell were the first to be released back to their provinces as the remaining 43-man squad assembled in Carton House.
Joe Schmidt had named a 44-man training squad at the end of May which was subsequently supplemented by the addition of Will Addison. It's likely that Schmidt and the coaching staff will further re-assess their options in the wake of Saturday's game against the Azzurri before the squad fly to Portugal on Wednesday August 14th for an eight-day warm-weather training camp at Quinta do Lago in the Algarve.
The squad will then transfer to London on Thursday, August 22nd in advance of their game against England in Twickenham two days later. A 31-man squad, pending any enforced changes, will be submitted to World Rugby on September 2nd at the behest of the game's governing body, following the first of the games against Wales on Saturday August 31st, before being finalised and publicly announced on September 8th, a day after the final preparatory game at home to Wales.
Tougher decisions assuredly await then. For example, Dillane's omission still leaves five locks in the squad, with the coaching staff set to choose four from five in James Ryan, Devin Toner, Iain Henderson, Tadhg Beirne and the recently qualified Jean Kleyn.
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For example, despite the loss of Sean O'Brien and Dan Leavy, as ever no combination will be trickier than picking five back-rowers from the seven in the squad.
The aforementioned Scannell was always the outside of the five centres named in the original training squad, and it could be that the remaining quartet will all travel to Japan, namely Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw, Garry Ringrose and Chris Farrell, unless one is sacrificed to accommodate a sixth halfback or sixth outside back.
The squad have had five tough weeks of pre-season since coming together on June 16th, completing 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 week at the IRFU’s new High Performance Centre in west Dublin along with two regeneration weeks in between.
Over 30,000 tickets have been sold for the first of Ireland’s two Guinness Summer Series against Italy on Saturday.
IRELAND Guinness Summer Series Squad v Italy
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
Guinness Summer Series 2019 Fixtures
IRELAND v Italy
Aviva Stadium, Saturday 10th August, KO 2.00pm
(Live Coverage: RTE & Channel 4)
IRELAND v Wales
Aviva Stadium, Saturday 7th September, KO 2.00pm
(Live Coverage: RTE & Channel 4)
August 2019 International Fixtures
England v IRELAND
Twickenham Stadium, Saturday 24th August, KO 3.00pm
(Live Coverage: Sky)
Wales v IRELAND
Principality Stadium, Saturday 31st August, KO 2.30pm
(Live Coverage: Channel 4)
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