As Ireland’s first Rugby World Cup warm-up clash looms, with a trip to face Wales at the Millennium Stadium this Saturday, Ireland forwards coach Simon Easterby has reported almost a full deck to pick from with just four players touch and go for fitness.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport’s Michael Corcoran, Easterby said that of the extended squad of 45, only Luke Fitzgerald, Sean Cronin, Marty Moore and Cian Healy were doubts for Saturday’s tie, but that the quartet were recovering well from their respective injuries.
"We’re pretty good. I think at this stage you would hope to be picking from a fairly full deck but at this stage there are still three guys that have come back from shoulder surgery at the back end of last season: Luke Fitzgerald, Sean Cronin and Marty Moore, who are all progressing really nicely, and taking part in chunks of training.
"They are going in the right direction and hopefully will be back in the mix in terms of selection over the next couple of weeks.
“Everyone is aware that Cian Healy has come back from [neck] surgery as well. He’s progressing week to week and we feel that he’s in a good place and the conditioners and the medical team are on top of things and we’re just taking it week to week.
"He’s moving along in the right direction and hopefully that will give him an opportunity over the next three or four weeks to get up to where he can be selected."
“Everyone is aware that Cian Healy has come back from [neck] surgery as well. He’s progressing week to week and we feel that he’s in a good place and the conditioners and the medical team are on top of things and we’re just taking it week to week" - Simon Easterby
The Ireland squad has had six-weeks of pre-season so far, with Easterby and the remainder of the brains trust being allowed a far larger chunk of access time with the players than would be possible during the Six Nations or autumn internationals. As a result the coaching team has new insight into the players and what they can do deliver.
“The guys are working particularly hard as they should be. They’ve worked hard with the conditioning team, they’ve worked hard on individual areas of their game, which we don’t always get time to do because we’re in and out of camp,” said Easterby. “So it’s been a nice period for us to have a bit more time with the players and to progressively build up their rugby work over the last couple of weeks.
“Hopefully we’ll see that rugby work coming to fruition over the weekend against Wales and throughout August in the four Test matches.
“It’s a bigger group than you would normally have and there are a couple of spots that are very competitive. And those spots might be only one spot up for grabs with three or four players fighting for those spots.
"That’s what you want for a World Cup. It’s different in that you are working with a larger group and the players are with us for a longer period. It gives us a chance to assess players in a different environment as opposed to when we’re in the Six Nations or autumn time when we only get them a week before.
"They go into a Test match the week after, so we’ve had a good period together, we’ve been able to assess them both mentally and physically over the last couple of weeks because we’ve tested them hard.
“Now is the time for them to put a lot of that good work to practice and there is no better place to go than Cardiff [against Wales] - a team that beat us on our last visit to Cardiff. So there’s plenty of motivation there for players, not least the motivation to perform individually, for staking their claim for a World Cup spot, but also important that combinations work and hopefully they make each other look good. We’ll be assessing them as individuals but also assessing them as combinations and unit groups.”
Bolters, players who make final squad cuts unexpectedly, are commonplace in rugby, and Easterby alluded to the fact that this Ireland squad has a number of players threatening to do just that.
“There’s often a player that people don’t expect to come through and at the moment there is probably two or three that are pushing for those types of spots, so it is an anxious time, I don’t think anyone is safe, because the beauty of a World Cup is you only have one chance every four years. We can’t take a long-term view, we’ve got be in the here and now,” said Easterby.
“Form over the next four weeks is important. Taking players to a World Cup that are able to perform in a World Cup is vital.
“We’re not looking long term in terms of development or anything like that. This is about picking the 31 players that we feel give us the chance to go and perform and be successful in a World Cup.
“Maybe in the past, certainly in 2007, that might not have been the case. “
Wales coach Warren Gatland has named four debutants for Saturday’s clash at the Millennium Stadium and Easterby knows that the Dragons mix of experience and youth will be a fiery combination.
“It’s got a good mix. There’s players in there that maybe we aren’t as familiar with, but with Hallam Amos, Eli Walker and Alex Cuthbert, with a bit of experience there, the back three pose a real threat," said Easterby.
“They’ve gone for a new combination at centre with Scott Williams as captain, who I know really well, but also Tyler Morgan – an exciting prospect. So, I think the backline has that little bit of excitement about it, but then you’ve got the halfbacks in James Hook and Mike Phillips with lots of experience and they’ve got that Test-match experience.
“I know Dom Day from my time with the Scarlets. He comes in for his first cap. Ross Moriarty, I’ve known him for a long time when his father was coaching me at the Scarlets.
“They’re all very competitive but there’s a good mix of youth and experience in that side which is what you would expect from the first Test.”
In terms of what Ireland can gain from the 80 minutes of rugby to come on Welsh soil, Easterby highlighted two goals: an opportunity to put into practice training ground moves; and also the chance to play at the Millennium Stadium prior to returning there to face Canada in a RWC Pool D match on 19 September.
“We’re trying to see some of things we’ve done in training come out and I think being really accurate is important,” said Easterby. “There’s going to be times when lads are blowing a little bit, with it being the first game for a little while. But if we’re accurate and show some of the stuff we’ve been working on then I think it will give us a starting point to work from.
“There comes a point when you need a test to test the players and to test what you’ve been putting into practice, so hopefully we’ll get that and we’ll have a lot of positives coming out of the game but we’ll also have a foundation to build on throughout August.
“It’s a sold out game and will be a terrific atmosphere. Some of the players will have been there in the Six Nations and will have experienced a pretty hostile and exciting place to go and play and that’s exactly what you want. A positive for us is that we’ll be back there in six weeks when we play Canada.
“It’s a good run for us knowing that we’ll be back in the same place with the roof closed playing Canada at the start of the World Cup.”
