Mark Anscombe: Rookies will keep top players ‘honest’

Eight debutants is a lot of inexperience to field in a Test match, not to mention the seven other players in the Ireland 23 with fewer than 10 caps each to their name. Yet having come through their baptisms with an eight try to three victory over Canada, head coach Joe Schmidt was satisfied he had laid down some more foundations for the rest of his three-year term and beyond the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

The 52-21 victory for a group of players given just two training sessions to forge some sort of unity and cohesion spoke volumes for the quality of that limited preparation and the rude health in which Irish rugby seems to be thriving.

To get two Test victories in successive weeks using 30 different starters is an impressive feat, not least given the first of those was over New Zealand. It did not go unnoticed by Canada’s Kiwi head coach Mark Anscombe.