'Continuity of selection versus giving guys opportunity, until you get those opportunities you just don't know'

STRIKING THE BALANCE: Ireland interim Head coach Simon Easterby is trying to strike a balance between continuity and giving player the opportunity. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom Maher

Simon Easterby may have rung the changes for Ireland’s latest Guinness Six Nations challenge but do not fall into the trap of thinking his selections weaken his squad’s chances of collecting a Triple Crown at Wales’s expense in Cardiff on Saturday.

The interim head coach made seven changes and one positional switch to the line-up which started the bonus-point victory over Scotland last time that keeps Ireland on track for the dream of a first Six Nations three in a row. Yet only one, a first Test start for tighthead prop Thomas Clarkson, has the faintest whiff of experimentation.

If Easterby is to strike that difficult balance between maintaining the hard-earned momentum gathered from wins against England and the Scots with his stated aim of growing experience across the playing group, he appears to be going the right way about it.

Wales, of course, will have something to say about that as they bid to kickstart their championship under newly installed head coach Matt Sherratt with a first home game of the campaign and the huge incentive of arresting a 14-Test losing streak that has reduced the 2021 champions to an all-time low of 12th in the World Rugby rankings.

Yet having had to make two enforced changes following injuries to captain Caelan Doris and hooker Ronan Kelleher, Easterby has brought in quality replacements for the trip to Principality Stadium. Dan Sheehan replaces Kelleher at hooker and Doris as skipper to become Ireland’s 111th Test captain, with Jack Conan standing in at No.8.

Mack Hansen resumes ownership of the right-wing berth he has made his own, when fit, since his debut in 2022, likewise Joe McCarthy, an automatic choice at lock since the 2023 World Cup until the head injury he sustained in pre-championship training. Nor does the inclusion of Garry Ringrose at outside centre and shifting Robbie Henshaw from 13 to 12 as Bundee Aki moves to the bench suggest anything other than Ireland being blessed with three world-class midfielders.

At full-back, Hugo Keenan is rested, to be replaced by Jamie Osborne, who may only be winning his sixth Ireland cap but impressed for his previous five, including a baptism of fire on debut in the white hot atmosphere and high altitude of Loftus Versfeld when starting last summer’s first Test against South Africa.

Which leaves Clarkson and a bench featuring two of his fellow Leinster front-row young guns in hooker Gus McCarthy and the potential debutant in loosehead prop Jack Boyle. The tighthead, who swaps places with a now benched Finlay Bealham, will spend his 25th birthday at the coalface of Test rugby having made four assured appearances of the bench, starting with a debut against Argentina last November.

Easterby is comfortable the changes he has made will not jeopardise the good form Ireland are currently enjoying.

"I think the continuity of selection versus giving guys opportunity, until you get those opportunities you just don't know and we're judging guys a lot in training, we're judging them on when they go back to play for their provinces.

"We've got a real confidence in the group, a lot of them having been involved in the Autumn series, maybe getting one or two caps, and this is a different dynamic, I guess, Six Nations, it's a very different feel and we need to challenge and give those guys opportunity to do that.

"So for me it's exciting, that's the only thing we should be doing for Irish rugby is making sure we keep growing the experiences and the depth and the understanding, and we've got plenty of continuity within that, I believe, in this selection, and we'll continue to do that in this championship.” 

WALES: B Murray (Scarlets); T Rogers (Scarlets), M Llewellyn (Gloucester), B Thomas (Cardiff), E Mee (Scarlets); G Anscombe (Gloucester), T Williams (Gloucester); N Smith (Leicester Tigers), E Dee (Dragons), WG John (Sale Sharks); W Rowlands (Racing 92), D Jenkins (Exeter Chiefs); J Morgan (Ospreys)(c), T Reffell (Leicester Tigers), T Faletau (Cardiff).

Replacements: E Lloyd (Cardiff), G Thomas (Ospreys), H Thomas (Scarlets), T Williams (Cardiff), A Wainwright (Dragons), R Williams (Dragons), J Evans (Harlequins), J Roberts (Scarlets).

IRELAND: J Osborne (Leinster); M Hansen (Connacht), G Ringrose (Leinster), R Henshaw (Leinster), J Lowe (Leinster); S Prendergast (Leinster), J Gibson-Park (Leinster); A Porter (Leinster), D Sheehan (Leinster) (c), T Clarkson (Leinster); J McCarthy (Leinster), T Beirne (Munster); P O’Mahony (Munster), J van der Flier (Leinster), J Conan (Leinster) 

Replacements: G McCarthy (Leinster), J Boyle (Leinster), F Bealham (Connacht), J Ryan (Leinster), C Prendergast (Connacht), C Murray (Munster), J Crowley (Munster), B Aki (Connacht)