British & Irish Lions
• British & Irish Lions tour Australia in 2013
Ireland Rugby
Last Chance Saloon for Ireland Players
The announcement yesterday of the Ireland AÂ squad to face England Saxons this weekend in Bath is a chance to show where you are and what you might have in the bag for the Six Nations campaign. That’s nothing unusual, except this time Ireland A (soon to be rebranded “The Wolfhounds”) has some really strong contenders in it!
They’ll all want to impress, from the fringe players to those established and needing to show some form to Kidney.
Trimble makes a return after a quiet season, Best, Horan and Hurley have all recovered from injuries and need reintroducing to this level.
“There are a few guys who have not had much game time over Christmas,” said Irish team manager Paul McNaughton. “Marcus has had 60 to 70 minutes with Shannon, so he’s had about 120 minutes of club rugby and the last 10 minutes of the Munster game.
“Rory had about 60 minutes in a club game last week. He’d be expected to get game time (against Saxons). So, the A game is an opportunity for Marcus and Rory because they haven’t been playing for the last two or three months.”
They’ll have even more to prove with several of the full ireland squad players sitting out training yesterday (Stephen Ferris, Donncha O’Callaghan, Seán Cronin, Ronan O’Gara, Gordon D’Arcy, Jonathan Sexton and Shane Horgan), all eyes are on the first game against Italy and other than Fitzgerald (long term injured) nobody has been discounted.