Reddan: I just wanted to play for Ireland, never thought I'd be captain

By Daniel Pitcher

Eoin Reddan has said he never thought he would have an opportunity to captain an Ireland team and says he’s looking forward to the challenge.

He will lead Ireland out tomorrow at the Aviva Stadium as they get set to take on Georgia at the Aviva Stadium.

It’s the first time Reddan will captain the national team and admits he was shocked when coach Joe Schmidt gave him the news.

Reddan was speaking at the Aviva Stadium this afternoon after he took the squad through the captain's run ahead of tomorrow’s showdown.

“Joe let me know earlier in the week, casually enough, I was quite shocked but l am very happy to do it.” Reddan said.

“It’s something that maybe you don’t dream of doing, I suppose I always wanted to play for Ireland, I never thought I’d get to do what I will be doing tomorrow.”

With all the extra preparation a captain needs to put into a match week, the Leinster scrum-half says it didn’t distract him from his own pre-match build up.

“There’s more duties in the week and a little more mental prep to make sure I’m in the position to play like I normally do but the rest of it won’t be too much change for me.”

Having beaten an ultra-physical Springboks team last time out, the expectation this week is on a heavy Irish victory short of a Cricket score.

That’s despite the 13 changes Joe Schmidt made to his starting 15, including giving first starts to

Dominic Ryan and Dave Foley.

Reddan says the public and indeed the media need to be careful when writing this Georgian team off.

“They are very strong in certain areas and there’s a lot of people out there who are probably expecting a little bit different to what might pan out.”

“The more you know about them, the more respect you have for them and probably the people who will respect them more will be the 15 Irish lads running onto the pitch.”