Ireland Vs Scotland WC 2019

Ireland today started there 2019 World Cup campaign with a comprehensive 27-3 win over a Scotland side that will truly wonder did they even get off the bus before the game. Ireland went into this game after winning three of four warm up games only coming a cropper against England losing heavily 57-15. England today started their campaign with a comfortable 35-3 win over Tonga.

Back to the International Stadium in Yokohama where Ireland faced the supposed stiffest test of the group against a Scotland side looking to make it to a 2nd Semi Final after 1991. Ireland started both Andrew Conway and Jordan Larmour in the back three alongside Jacob Stockdale.

Both men started off being very shaky with Larmour off loading a ball in a tackle early on that was turned over by John Barclay and then Conway knocked on a catch but as the game wore on these two grew into the task at hand. Men like Conor Murray and his sparring partner at half back Jonathan Sexton did very well early on bringing the centre combination of Bundee Aki and Garry Ringrose into play in attack and both of these men were strong in defence.

Ireland came into to today’s game with a few questions over the set piece and the non selection of Devin Toner but as has so often been the case under Joe Schmidt, Ireland had some cleaver moves lined up that saw Peter O Mahony go up for the first few line outs and then Iain Henderson took a few but they were shrewd that James Ryan only was called upon a few times as it looked likely that Scotland were set to target James Ryan as they may have felt he was the main target at line out time.

This failed to happen on so many occasions over the 80 minutes. That show’s that Ireland are being very cleaver in the video analysis room and making small tweaks to their game plans throughout the week. The performance this morning is far removed from the England game back in early August.

Some will say, it was cleaver thinking and planning in the team room and training pitch. All 23 played very well with Chris Farrell and Jack Conan being drafted in early on to replace Peter O Mahony and Bundee Aki who both failed Head Injury Assessments and will be touch and go whether they will be involved in match 2 against Japan next Saturday at 8.15am Irish time.

The Irish team will see a number of changes just to freshen things up and reintroduce a few men like Keith Earls, Rob Kearney and Robbie Henshaw if they are deemed fit to join in over the next few days. The show moves onto to face hosts Japan. The World Cup has started in strong winning fashion and they will hope to continue that winning form next week against Japan.

Here is the XV I would select to face Japan next week….

15 Andrew Conway

14 Keith Earls

13 Garry Ringrose

12 Chris Farrell

11 Jacob Stockdale

10 Jonathan Sexton

9 Conor Murray

8 Jack Conan

7 Josh Van Der Flier

6 CJ Stander

5 James Ryan

4 Iain Henderson

3 Tadgh Furlong

2 Rory Best

1 Cian Healy

16 Sean Cronin

17 Dave Kilcoyne

18 Andrew Porter

19 Tadgh Beirne

20 Rhys Ruddock

21 Luke Mc Grath

22 Jack Carty

23 Robbie Henshaw

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