Carbery in race against clock to make World Cup

It does not take a mathematician to realise seven into five won’t go but the task facing Ireland team management as they juggle their half-back permutations for the upcoming World Cup may be up there with the work of the best Nobel Prize winners.

In these days of high-intensity, ultra-physical and attritional Test match rugby, the maximum of 31 players permitted for each World Cup squad looks unrealistically low to see a squad through a potential eight-match run to the Webb Ellis trophy.