Ireland confident of welcoming back recovering players for Tongan test

Simon Easterby says the likes of Robbie Henshaw are expected to be available.

ON THE MEND: Ireland’s Jack Conan and defence coach Simon Easterby. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Ireland are optimistic that a number of players who missed the World Cup Pool B win over Romania will be fit to face Tonga in Nantes next Saturday.

Robbie Henshaw was withdrawn from the matchday squad for Ireland’s tournament-opening 82-8 victory over the Romanians at Stade de Bordeaux on Saturday. The centre had been named as the outside backs replacement but a hamstring concern experienced the previous day meant he was replaced by wing Mack Hansen.

First-choice hooker Dan Sheehan (foot), loosehead prop Dave Kilcoyne (hamstring) and back-rower Jack Conan (foot) were all ruled out of the Bordeaux game ahead of last Thursday’s team announcement but assistant coach Simon Easterby said on Sunday that all 33 players in the Ireland squad were in the mix for selection to face the Tongans at Stade de la Beaujoire next Saturday night.

“I’d say we haven’t ruled anyone out for next week,” Easterby said. “We’ll certainly assess more people today and tomorrow. It’s usually the case that things are maybe flagged 24, 48 hours sometimes after a game as opposed to straight after the night of the game."

As for players coming back into the selection frame for next Saturday, including Henshaw, the defence coach added: “He’s one of a number of those guys that didn’t take part yesterday that we would expect to be ready for selection come tomorrow night.

“Yeah, we’re hopeful that Robbie and others who haven’t taken part for whatever reason are available next week, and I think that’s credit to the guys who are conditioning the boys and also the medics. The way that they’ve worked over the last few weeks in particular, at the moment we’re in pretty good shape.” 

As for the matchday 23 that engineered a 12-try rout of the Pool B outsiders in 36C heat on Saturday afternoon, Easterby said: “As far as we are aware everyone came through pretty unscathed, so it was great in that respect in terms of getting players game time in the heat, the conditions.

“We’ve played in the afternoon now, the rest of the matches will be at night so I guess we’ve gone a long way to producing a good performance in really tough conditions.” 

Captain Johnny Sexton, playing his first game in six months following injury and suspension was one of four players to score two tries in the demolition of Romania with Bundee Aki, Peter O’Mahony and Tadhg Beirne also striking twice. A quartet of World Cup debutants - Jamison Gibson-Park, Hugo Keenan, Rob Herring and Joe McCarthy also got on the scoresheet, but not before Romania had taken a shock lead after just 130 seconds through Gabriel Rupanu’s counter-attacking try.

Assessing the performance, Easterby said: “Well, it was a good start I guess, in terms of the 80 minutes. I think first up, any World Cup match you want to get off to a good start.

“We obviously didn’t quite get that start we wanted considering the early try but certainly as the game went on we grew into the game and I think the second-half performance was right up there.

“We have to take into account what we were up against and the conditions etc but we’re really pleased with the way we finished the game. Not quite as much from my perspective the way we started.”