Hugo Keenan backs James Lowe and Mack Hansen to provide Ireland with X-Factor

"I always enjoy playing with them so great news,” said Keenan after the duo were passed fit to face the All Blacks.

X-FACTOR: Hugo Keenan poses for a portrait after an Ireland Rugby media conference at Stade Omnisports des Fauvettes in Domont. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Hugo Keenan is backing James Lowe and Mack Hansen to bring some X-factor to Ireland’s attack after the wing duo passed fit to face New Zealand in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final.

Left wing Lowe has overcome a first-half eye injury against Scotland last Saturday, when he was accidently caught by a team-mate’s finger, while right wing Hansen has recovered from the calf problem he picked up shortly after completing a successful Head Injury Assessment in that same opening period.

Both players were included when the team to play the All Blacks was announced yesterday, meaning Ireland are unchanged from their 36-14 Pool B victory over the Scots, thus reuniting the first-choice back-three combination with Keenan.

The full-back played the second half at Stade de France last Saturday with scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park and centre Garry Ringrose on the wings and was understandably pleased to have returned to the status quo, selection-wise.

“It’s brilliant,” Keenan said. “We finished the game with an interesting back three. Jamo did a brilliant job, didn’t he? He is such a creative player, so exciting, so he slotted in well on the wing. To have the two lads back again brings a bit of X-factor to the back three. I always enjoy playing with them so great news.”

Keenan is looking forward to the challenge facing Ireland this Saturday night back at Stade de France, 15 months on from the last meeting between the two sides, when he was part of a touring side that beat the All Blacks in back-to-back Tests in Dunedin and Wellington for the first Irish victories on New Zealand soil and a historic first series win there.

Yet he balked at describing this weekend’s match-up as his biggest game ever.

“It’s obviously important but so was the one last week and so was South Africa and so were all the matches in the Six Nations. We’ve been treating them all as knockout rugby.

“It’s always the next game that is important. It is a big challenge but it is exactly where we want to be as well.”

Nor was the full-back reading too much into Ireland’s recent good record against the three-time world champions having played them four times since his Test debut in 2020 and won three of them.

“I suppose you have to build on a bit of the confidence that it has given you in, I suppose, coming out better in the past.

“But we haven’t played them for over a year now. They will have improved massively. They will have taken the learnings from those games, and they’ll come out gunning for us as well.

“We’re just preparing as best we can this weekend, looking at what they have done in the recent past in the last couple of games to try get ahead of that.

“Just focusing on ourselves then over the next couple of day, getting ourselves right.”