Ireland Squad Announced to Take On Mighty All Blacks

Andy Farrell has announced his squad for Saturday’s big game facing New Zealand and only one change has been made to the starting 15 (and I think he did it for me).

The one change to Ireland’s starting 15 is the Ulster Captain, Iain Henderson, in place of Tadgh Beirne. We’ve seen the Henderson/Ryan second row plenty of times and we know they operate well in all aspects of the game.

In the backline it’s completely unchanged with Lowe, Conway and Keenan making up the back 3. Same as last week, Gibson-Park and Sexton link up with Aki and Ringrose making up the centre pairing. Ireland have stuck with their all round agile and dangerous backline, as we saw last week, with plenty of attacking prowess.

In the pack the front row stays the same with Porter, Kelleher and Furlong whilst, as previously mentioned, the second row is formed by Henderson and Ryan swapping out Beirne. On each flank are Doris and Van Der Flier with Conan rounding off the pack at 8. Expect to see no change from last week’s aggressive, ball carrying pack making big ground not only in contact but running in space too. Although, I would suspect a bit more caution regarding the ridiculous offload rate from the clash with Japan.

On the bench Ulster’s Rob Herring is joined by a band of Irish starters ready to make a big impact. Murray, Herring, Healy, Earls and O’Mahony on the bench demonstrate just how deep Ireland’s talent pool goes. Any of these players could have started in this game, but instead they will make a huge impact at halftime or 60 minutes, hopefully to get Ireland over the line for the win. Bealham and Carbery on the bench, whilst not starters yet, does nothing to dissuade just how great Ireland’s squad depth is.

I argued last week that Farrell picked a middle of the road squad and I was happy to eat my words so maybe if I say it again this week they’ll prove me wrong again? Eh, suppose it doesn’t work that way. With that said, to absolutely no one’s surprise, New Zealand have picked an absolute monster of a squad. With names like Savea, Perenara, Barrett and Barrett it really boosts the excitement about the challenge Ireland have ahead of them. I also realise I could have listed any 4 of the All Black squad and made the same point but you understand. Well, any excluding domestic violence’s own Sevu Reece*.

What a test it is to come on Saturday when Ireland take on the mighty All Blacks, I expect nothing less than fireworks and tension that might kill me if the Scotland v South Africa game hasn’t already.

*Credit to Lee Calvert of the Guardian for the title I will be giving Sevu Reece from now on should I ever have to refer to him.