Red for Aki but Ireland approach quarters in better health than 2015

Joe Schmidt chose his words carefully but he was clearly fuming about the fact that Ireland were playing rugby today while others got to take the weekend off as he announced the Ireland team to play Samoa in the team hotel on Thursday.

The head coach joked ruefully about how Ireland could have done without their last pool game, against France, four years ago given it left so many of his players injured and unavailable for the quarter-final against Argentina a week later.