It's one thing pitching a bunch of likely lads into a game against Fiji, another to grant first Test starts to James Ryan and debutant Adam Byrne against Argentina. But the process of broadening the base of the Irish squad continues apace, and in that context, this team is more diverse than ever.
Ryan captained the Irish Under-20s which reached the 2016 World Rugby Under-20 Championship in England, in a team which also features another teammate against Argentina tomorrow, fellow 21-year-old Jacob Stockdale, as well as another full Test debutant from last week, Andrew Porter, all of whom are being fast-tracked into the Irish squad almost two years out from the next World Cup.
Joe Schmidt has been an admirer of Ryan's since seeing him play for the Leinster Under-16s at 15 years old and last summer gave him his Irish debut before he had played for Leinster. Now, after just three starts and five games for Leinster, he wins his fourth cap.
They all followed the well-worn route of the schools system into their respective provincial academies, but with Chris Farrell also deputising for the hamstrung Robbie Henshaw, he and Byrne bring to four the number of players who came through the clubs/Youths' set-ups along with Sean O'Brien and Tadhg Furlong. That's great to see.
In the absence of Garry Ringrose, Jared Payne and now Henshaw, the Bundee Aki-Farrell combination becomes the third different midfield partnership of this window, while despite the absence of Keith Earls, Simon Zebo and the Ulster trio of Tommy Bowe, Andrew Trimble and Craig Gilroy, Byrne becomes the fifth winger and 36th player used in this window, as well as the 46th new cap in Schmidt's tenure.
Schmidt previously made the 23-year-old Byrne Leinster’s youngest debutant in the professional era against Connacht at the RDS in December 2012.
Schmidt revealed that Henshaw had trained fully on Monday before his hamstring began to nag at him on Tuesday, and rather than shift Aki out to 13 opted for a straight swap with Farrell.
“At that stage we were halfway through the week and Bundee, as much as he has had a lot of experience at Super Rugby level, he hasn’t really had that experience at test level. So we did not want to be shifting him around too much and Chris plays at 13 for Munster and played 13 every time he played for Grenoble over the last three years so we back him in that spot.”
Real challenge
The net effect though, is that this callow-looking Irish three-quarter line has merely five caps between them, with only another 16 caps amongst the three back replacements. This cannot have been what Schmidt was envisaging at the outset of this window, and does, he admitted, create difficulties.
“Particularly with the type of player they have, that is going to be a real challenge for us – [Matias] Moroni’s footwork, the footwork of [Santiago] Gonzalez-Iglesias, [Nicolas] Sanchez himself and then the back three. They’ve built some really good experience in the Rugby Championship and that’s going to be a real challenge for us.”
“Robbie being unavailable wasn’t something we’d foreseen, he would have added more experience to that three-quarter-line. But part of the attraction for us is that, a little like last week, guys will have to independently survive and make good decisions – not have somebody directing them around the pitch.”
“We would rather we had someone right there to assist them, but sometimes that doesn’t happen – someone gets injured early in the game and destabilises them. We want to be able to play our way through destabilised periods.”
"That really started last November, we scrambled our way to a win over Australia with a very makeshift backline," added Schmidt, citing the day three injuries by half-time forced Keith Earls moving from wing to centre "and doing a super job", with Joey Carbery at fullback and Kieran Marmion on the wing.
He also referenced losing Conor Murray and Rob Kearney two days before the England game last March, and Jamie Heaslip in the warm-up, meaning Marmion started and Luke McGrath finished, a rusty Payne returned at fullback and Peter O'Mahony started with Dan Leavy a last minute addition to the bench.
"They all acquitted themselves really well," said Schmidt. "It's not always going to work out perfectly like that. I suppose the more opportunities we have to test people in those situations, the more they'll learn about themselves, the more they'll be better equipped to cope in the Six Nations or further."
Bearing all this in mind, tomorrow’s game will be as much about the performance of individuals.
“A good day in the office has to be some good performances from some individuals who we’ve given an opportunity in the context that we want to be cohesive as a team. So within the team, they deliver the sort of performance that is conducive to the team doing well and I think if we can do that then we’re going to be really competitive.
“You can never say that you’ll get a result or you want to get a result. I know that the players will be rolling their sleeves up and working really hard to get the result but the way that you do that is through individuals picking up their performance and combining it well enough that we’re hard to break down defensively and we threaten them across the pitch on attack.”
IRELAND: R Kearney, A Byrne (both Leinster), C Farrell (Munster), B Aki (Connacht), J Stockdale (Ulster), J Sexton (Leinster), C Murray (Munster), C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster, capt), T Furlong, James Ryan (both Leinster), I Henderson (Ulster), P O'Mahony (Munster), S O'Brien (Leinster), CJ Stander (Munster). Replacements: J Tracy (Leinster), D Kilcoyne, John Ryan (both Munster), D Toner, R Ruddock, L McGrath (all Leinster), I Keatley, A Conway (both Munster).
