Irish ready to get down to business

NOVEMBER INTERNAIONALS:

On the day, O’Neill and Roy Keane are unveiled as the FAI’s management dream team, six days ahead of their first game, Schmidt finally gets to taste Test match rugthis evening as he takes charge of Ireland’s Guinness Series opener against Samoa at Aviva Stadium (5.45pm).

It is a moment he has been planning for since April 29, when the IRFU handed the then Leinster boss the reins of a national team that had limped across the finishing line in last season’s Six Nations, a near catastrophic casualty list and associated poor results sealing the fate of predecessor Declan Kidney.