JOE SCHMIDT HAS named his team to face England at Twickenham on Saturday in their final World Cup warm-up fixture. View the matchday 23 in full here.
Healy held back
Though he has been given the all clear to play and has been taking part in the contact and scrummaging portions of Ireland’s training in the last two weeks, Cian Healy will be held back this weekend.
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It presents us with the fascinating prospect of once-capped Tadhg Furlong being used off the bench at loosehead in what would be his first professional outing in that position. A specialist tighthead, Furlong would have a demanding task on his hands against the English.
For Schmidt and scrum coach Greg Feek, late on in Saturday’s game might just be the ideal moment to find out whether Furlong is truly ready to do something similar in the World Cup.
Payne and Henshaw reunite
Schmidt has referred to his centre partnership as a “manufactured” one, which perhaps belies Henshaw’s history in the centre as a youth. Nonetheless, it is true that both Henshaw and Payne had had more recent history at fullback before being moved to midfield for Ireland last season.
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The results ever since have been strong, although one senses that there is more to come from Ireland’s centre, particularly in attack. Henshaw has been impactful in defence, while Payne has gone about his job with extreme levels of competency.
There may be scope for Henshaw and Payne to read each other’s intentions in attack more intuitively now, perhaps pick a better support line or find their partner with a short offload. Brad Barritt will hope to ensure that doesn’t happen of course.
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This month has been all about holding things back, not just from Ireland. Any team willing to expose their most lethal strike moves or most testing shapes in phase play is well aware that opposition analysts will pick them apart before the World Cup.
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That said, there is nothing like match practice to ensure that those elements of a team’s intended game plan actually work under pressure. Ireland famously train with Test-like intensity under Schmidt, but the Kiwi may just expose a few more ideas on Saturday.