Summer Tour Squad – Missed Chance??

Is the selection for Ireland’s summer tour of Argentina a missed chance by Joe Schmidt and his coaching team ? Could he have left more of the big stars at home on this occasion and gone with some alternative options like Madigan or Keatley in place of Sexton, Dave Foley on place of Paul O Connell would have been two changes I would have made.

As we know Argentina will not be at full strength for this test series due to player commitments elsewhere , an argument for another day , but back to the squad they will select from home based players. I am not saying that this would be a bad squad but it will be weakened without their European based players. For this reason I would have selected 20 or 25 new players backboned by 5 senior players with over 20 caps just to keep a balance.

 I am not trying to devalue the tour in anyway but we know what 95% of the squad is capable of and with the World Cup less than 18 months away we still need to blood more young blood into the side. In the out half department in particular both Ian Madigan and Ian Keatley can feel aggrieved at not being included in the main squad. Has Madigan paid for being behind Gopperth for the big games this year??

After the Lions tour in 2013 which saw three of this touring party take part in the test series against Australia, which does mean whatever way you look at it that these three men have played in essence 12 months of test intensity rugby for club and country. Sexton in particular could have done with a break after his first full season in the Top 14 in France.

It is a full a squad as you can have without some of the other big names that have been left out D’arcy , Bowe in the backs along with messers O Brien and O Donnell in the forwards. Maybe a lack of game time has cost O Brien his place in the squad ? So to sum up in my humble opinion I just feel on this occasion that this squad selection leaves more question than answers ahead of 2015….

By

Cian Mc Gibney.

20-05-2014.