Fringe players lick wounds as Schmidt wields axe

The first cut is the deepest.

That is certainly the way the 12 players jettisoned by Joe Schmidt from Ireland’s Six Nations squad will have felt yesterday as the 34 survivors returned to camp at Carton House to prepare for the opening two games of the championship.

Schmidt’s job as national head coach requires him, of course, to make the tough decisions and having picked so large a training group initially, he gave his fringe players every opportunity to impress both in camp last week and for the Wolfhounds on Saturday against the Saxons.

Those Wolfhounds, in terrible conditions, particularly for those who look their best playing expansive, running rugby, acquitted themselves well, but Schmidt has clearly deemed some of them to be fair weather friends and swung the axe accordingly.

The wings were on a hiding to nothing at Kingsholm after the downpours that turned the Gloucester pitch into a gluepot and with such an array of talent back in Ireland sitting in the box seat, Craig Gilroy, who started on the left wing, and his 61st minute replacement Simon Zebo did not do enough to remove Luke Fitzgerald, Dave Kearney and Andrew Trimble from the reckoning.

Yet Fergus McFadden, who started on the other wing against the Saxons, survives and given the rave reviews he received from his former Leinster boss Schmidt following his performance against Australia in November, looks to have made an instant impact on his return from injury.

That might jar with both Zebo and Gilroy, both of whom had been omitted from the extended squad when first announced, Schmidt determining the pair had yet to prove their fitness after absences from Munster and Ulster respectively despite playing in Heineken Cup rounds five and six.

Both were only called into service at Carton House when the knee injury to Keith Earls ruled him out of the campaign and will now have to bide their time back with their provinces.

Others counting themselves unfortunate will be headed by scrum-half Isaac Boss, who earned the man of the match award at Gloucester with the opening try for the Wolfhounds, but is deemed surplus to requirements, Schmidt sticking with Conor Murray and Eoin Reddan.

The head coach will prepare for his Six Nations debut this weekend, though, keeping his options wide open as to whom he will choose to fill the vacancy at openside flanker. The serious shoulder injury suffered by Sean O’Brien has left a serious hole in Ireland’s planning for the championship and against the dynamic and physical back rows of both Scotland and Wales there is little room to ease new blood into the No.7 jersey.

Yet Ulster’s Chris Henry will have to outdo the Wolfhounds pair of Munster’s Tommy O’Donnell and Leinster’s Jordi Murphy if he is not to be upstaged when Schmidt names his starting XV on Friday lunchtime.

O’Donnell had an impressive hour against the Saxons at the weekend while Murphy put his back into a big defensive rearguard to thwart the home side after coming off the bench as the Munsterman’s replacement.

Murphy, though, is one of just three uncapped players to have survived yesterday’s cut and while he has a big future ahead it would be a major surprise if he leapfrogged either of his rivals into a starting jersey on Sunday.

The same applies for the similarly uncapped No.8 Robin Copeland with Jamie Heaslip seemingly a certainty to start this weekend, although tighthead Martin Moore may be in a position to challenge his Leinster team-mate Mike Ross.

Like Schmidt’s loosehead choices, Cian Healy and Jack McGrath, the tighthead selection contest is an all-Leinster affair as his former province provides the lion’s share of personnel to the national squad. There are 18 Leinster men in total, 19 if you include former player Johnny Sexton, now with Racing Metro. Ulster provide eight to the party, Connacht just one, Robbie Henshaw, and Munster five, including full-back Felix Jones, back in contention for a first cap since an injury during a World Cup warm-up game against France removed him from Declan Kidney’s tournament squad in the autumn of 2011.

For Schmidt’s inital foray into the Six Nations at least, he will be relying largely on familiar faces.