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Published 16:53 20 Jul 2022 BST
Updated 10:01 21 Jul 2022 BST
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"There’s plenty more to play," insists Johnny Sexton. "There are big home games in November, there’s a Six Nations to play where we still haven’t achieved things we want to achieve in that."Ireland have South Africa, Fiji and Australia all coming to Dublin in November, followed by the 2023 Six Nations and four World Cup warm-up games, next summer. That means Andy Farrell still has 12 more Test matches before locking in his squad for France 2023. Farrell is his own man, but the record books show most Ireland coaches will have locked in most of their World Cup runners and riders around 18 months out from the tournament starting. More Test debuts are generally handed out in the first two years after a World Cup than in that two-year run-in. This year, Mack Hansen and Michael Lowry were the only players to make full 'Test' debuts. There are a smattering of inexperienced, bolter exceptions over the past four World Cups. Jean Kleyn (3 caps) made the 2019 squad, Tadhg Furlong (2) in 2015, Conor Murray (2) and Fergus McFadden (4) in 2011, while Declan Kidney went with relative newcomers Stephen Ferris (4), Eoin Reddan (3) and Brian Carney (3) in 2007. At this stage, Andy Farrell will already have an idea of the players he will be building his 2023 World Cup squad around. Considering that 43 players [including the 'retired' Michael Bent] were used in New Zealand and that four-more were specifically mentioned as being unavailable due to injury, it will take some doing to whittle this down to 33 men.
LOOSEHEAD: Andrew Porter, Cian Healy HOOKER: Rónan Kelleher, Dan Sheehan TIGHTHEAD: Tadhg Furlong, Finlay Bealham SECOND ROW: James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne, Iain Henderson BACK ROW: Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris, Peter O'Mahony, Jack Conan SCRUMHALF: Jamison Gibson-Park OUTHALF: Johnny Sexton, Joey Carbery CENTRE: Bundee Aki, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw BACK THREE: Mack Hansen, James Lowe, Rob Baloucoune, Andrew Conway, Hugo Keenan
That leaves nine positions, with two more scrum-halves needed, one for each of the front row positions, ditto for second and back row, another outhalf and a versatile backline player.
This is my current read on the best-placed players to fill those final squad positions. Jordan Larmour was there, too, until I realised I had selected 10 probables and needed to trim one. Even with 33 players to chose, this is hard.
Gavin Coombes and Ryan Baird are both cover options for second and back row, but I've gone for Coombes as he started the two Maori games while Baird fell behind Kieran Treadwell in the Test reckoning. Ciarán Frawley is ahead of injury-plagued Harry Byrne right now, as he can cover across the backline. Byrne desperately needs a clear run of it, next season, as he is well regarded by Andy Farrell.
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