My Ireland Team to face Wales in Six Nations opener on February 7th:
15 Rob Kearney
14 Andrew Conway
13 Robbie Henshaw
12 Stuart Mc Closkey
11 Luke Fitzgerald
10 Jonathan Sexton
9 Conor Murray
8 CJ Stander
7 Sean O Brien
6 Dominic Ryan
5 Donnacha Ryan
4 Devin Toner
3 Martin Moore
2 Rory Best
1 Jack Mc Grath
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16 Sean Cronin
17 Dave Kilcoyne
18 Tadgh Furlong
19 Ultan Dillane
20 Jamie Heaslip
21 Kieran Marmion
22 Paddy Jackson
23 Gary Ringrose
Here is the squad I would choose for the first Six Nations game against Wales on February 7th. Ireland head into this Six Nations as defending champions just in case people had forgotten that fact as the performance at the World Cup has dominated the last few months. Ireland will be missing a few key players for the current campaign with both Tommy Bowe and Iain Henderson both ruled out and question marks over the participation of Cian Healy.
First choice back row Peter O Mahony will also miss out on this competition through injury. Looking at this year’s Six Nations, even though no Six Nations side made the last 4 , 3 of the teams made the quarter finals. Ireland will need to move away from the power play game plan and try and utilise the quality backs that are in Ireland at the moment.
With France now being coached by Guy Noves and England under the stewardship of Eddie Jones , Joe Schmidt has two new adversaries to try and outwit as he tries to plan how Ireland will defend the crown they won on points last March.
This is the team that I feel will do the best job at defending the crown and with some players now retired or injured these are the men I think that can do the job.
By
Cian Mc Gibney
06/01/2016
