Fringe players must impress in interprovincial derbies for tour to South Africa

Joe Schmidt has challenged Ireland’s fringe players to use the upcoming interprovincial derbies to stake their claim for places in his squad for June’s three Test tour to South Africa.

Schmidt saw his team close out the 2016 RBS 6 Nations with a 35-25 victory over Scotland on Saturday that meant his outgoing titleholders finished third in the table behind Wales and new champions, Grand Slam winners England.

It was a campaign which saw Schmidt forced to plan without retired captain Paul O’Connell and experienced but injured stars Tommy Bowe, Luke Fitzgerald, Iain Henderson, and Peter O’Mahony, while Sean O’Brien and Dave Kearney fell by the wayside during the campaign and Cian Healy and Mike Ross only returned from injury in round three.

Accordingly there were five new caps introduced to the Test scene during the Six Nations but with no provincial representation in the upcoming Champions Cup quarter-finals, there will be little chance for others to forward their cases for a chance to go toe to toe with the mighty Springboks this summer as Ireland bid for an historic first victory on South African soil.

With Tests in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Port Elizabeth this June against last October’s World Cup semi-finalists, Schmidt will need all the experience he can get from the returning O’Brien, Henderson, O’Mahony, and company but in the absence of European rugby it will require stand-out performances in the Guinness Pro12 interpros in the coming weeks to catch the selectors’ attention.

League leaders Connacht play Leinster in Galway on Saturday and the following weekend Leinster host Munster at the Aviva and Ulster welcome Connacht to Ravenhill while April will also see Connacht-Munster and Ulster-Leinster fixtures.

Schmidt admitted: “The best thing for us always is when those teams are playing in Europe, especially the play-offs in Europe. That’s the closest thing we can get to Test preparation. That’s the closest thing a player coming through the system can get as a stepping stone to full Test match rugby.”

But he added the derby games would instead have to do for the likes of Leinster centre Garry Ringrose, Connacht wing Matt Healy, Ulster’s versatile back Stuart Olding, and Munster forward duo Jack O’Donoghue and Dave Foley, all of whom have spent time training with the squad and are firmly on Schmidt’s radar.

“I think the derby games have a real edge to them and when you match up who is going to be playing, I know that Connacht-Leinster next week is going to be a humdinger. I’m looking forward to the game. In the midfield you may well have a Robbie Henshaw and a Garry Ringrose in amongst a Ben Te’o and a Bundee Aki potentially. And you may well see a Matt Healy come up against a Dave Kearney, who was certainly in the squad and who was going well against France until his shoulder got knocked. The one thing I would say is it’s never a perfect world, so whatever you want to be the case is seldom the case entirely, so you’ve got to mix and match as best you can.”

What is clear, however, is that Schmidt is under no illusions that taking on South Africa and then in November playing world champions New Zealand twice and beaten World Cup finalists Australia is not for the faint-hearted.

Referring to the fly-half position and chances to give further experience to the likes of Ian Madigan and Paddy Jackson, he said the size of the task ahead would mean the experience of first-choice Johnny Sexton was always preferable. “It’s just so hard to do it when the next seven Test matches, six of them are against the best three teams in the world.

“So, it doesn’t allow for a massive amount of experimentation. Even last week, any experimentation is balanced with the need to get a bit of momentum, to get a bit of confidence before we go away because it’s an imperfect world. We’re never going to get the pathway that we best want. We’ve just got to work with what we have in front of us and master each step that we have in front of us.”