Schmidt: Players must grasp this opportunity

Irish coach Joe Schmidt said that tomorrow’s first Test against Argentina presents several players with an opportunity to stake claims for permanent places.

South African Robbie Diack will make his Irish debut in a back row where Jordi Murphy makes his first start when he will win his third Irish cap. Darren Cave, as expected, has been handed the 13 shirt where he will team up with Ulster colleague Luke Marshall in a backline where Simon Zebo returns to the international scene.

Connacht pair Kieran Marmion and Rodney Ah You are poised to make their Irish debuts off the bench.

“There are some really good opportunities for players,” said Schmidt. “Jack McGrath coming in there gave us some continuity from the Six Nations. There was a temptation to start Dave Kilcoyne or Sean Cronin but Jack didn’t play a lot on Saturday in the Rabo final and gets his second chance to start after starting the Guinness series game in November against Samoa, and that gave us a bit of continuity with Mike Ross and Rory Best there.

“Then there is the second row. Iain Henderson gets a start with Paul O’Connell, I think that’s ideal for Iain to get alongside the master and gives Devin Toner a breather and a chance to come off the bench and make an impact.

“Robbie Diack is a very good lineout player. We are expecting his really high work rate to give us a little bit of an edge in the back end of the game.”

The Irish coach hopes to extend his options after the two Tests against the Pumas and says it is a big opportunity for Simon Zebo and others to make their mark.

“Simon is a very talented player... one of the challenges for players is to try make the job easier for players around them. It’s the smaller things that if he is very good in a particular area and it allows us to get quicker ball or it allows us a bit more opportunity not to put so many in the ruck or not to overload defensively — all those manifestations that occur in a game — if you can as a player be utterly reliable and deliver all the aspects required of you, people don’t have to double up and double job.

“I’m not talking about Simon here, I’m talking generally, that that’s a challenge for this team. We’ll be looking at Robbie Diack, we’ll be looking at Simon Zebo because we see massive strengths in both those players but we want to see some of the all-round aspects we know we have to be good at.”