Ireland face England in the last of their World Cup warm-up matches today at Twickenham, and Joe Schmidt has selected close to Ireland’s full Test side, with one or two changes.
Nominally a wing, Simon Zebo starts at fullback, where he showed some great touches against Scotland two weeks ago.
Tommy Bowe and Dave Kearney join him in the back three. Bowe has not being at his best recently and will want to impress, while Kearney is improving with every appearance.
Jared Payne and Robbie Henshaw are the centres. The two were first paired together against South Africa in last year’s November series, where they played a great game. But having failed to ignite during the recent Six Nations, this is another chance to cement themselves as Ireland’s new centre partnership.
Ireland’s first-choice pairing of Johnny Sexton and Conor Murray are the halves.
In the pack, Paul O’Connell captains and is matched with Devin Toner in the second row. Peter O’Mahony, Sean O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip are Ireland’s back row, and are all world-class.
Mike Ross, Rory Best and Jack McGrath are the front row, and may be Ireland’s best if Cian Healy doesn’t recover from injury.
Healy is the only top-flight player yet to make an appearance in the warm-up games. He has still been picked in the World Cup squad, so Schmidt is hoping he’ll recover in time for the tournament.
Darren Cave is on the bench, having been included in the 31-man World Cup squad at the expense of taking a third-choice scrum-half.
The warm-up games have been a mixed bag for Ireland. They beat an inexperienced Welsh side, overcame a determined Scotland side, and lost to a superior Welsh side, where some of Ireland’s weaknesses were exposed.
While I said at the start of the series that results aren’t the most important aspect of warm-up matches, a loss to England on the heels of a loss to Wales bodes ill for Irish chances at the World Cup.
Ireland
15 Simon Zebo, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Jared Payne, 12 Robbie Henshaw, 11 Dave Kearney, 10 Jonathan Sexton, 9 Conor Murray, 8 Jamie Heaslip, 7 Sean O’Brien, 6 Peter O’Mahony, 5 Paul O’Connell (c), 4 Devin Toner, 3 Mike Ross, 2 Rory Best, 1 Jack McGrath.
Replacements: 16 Richardt Strauss, 17 Tadhg Furlong, 18 Nathan White, 19 Donnacha Ryan, 20 Chris Henry, 21 Eoin Reddan, 22 Ian Madigan, 23 Darren Cave.
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