Whereas other coaches have bitten the bullet in finalising their 31-man squads, or will have done so by the weekend, Joe Schmidt and his assistants will keep all their options open before informing the unlucky ones of their final decision on Sunday. Public confirmation of the chosen 31 will follow, most likely on Monday.
Irish defence coach Les Kiss maintained they remain very open-minded prior to these weekend's games, when playing for their provinces will not necessarily mean relegation. As many of the 46-man squad as possible will be given game time this weekend, whether it be for Ireland against Wales at the Aviva on Saturday, or those released to play friendlies with Leinster, Munster and Ulster on Friday night
The coaches will be burning the midnight oil on Saturday and perhaps into Sunday night too. “We’ll get a lot of vision from the provincial games, during that Saturday, then we’ll watch that [Ireland-Wales] game and get the vision afterwards. And we won’t get much sleep, put it that way, we’ll trawl through it.
Combinations
“It’s about going through each position and combinations. There are some fairly tough decisions to make, important decisions, not only from the rugby perspective but the individual. It’s a tough thing to tell a guy that he’s not going to be involved. So Sunday is going to be busy.”
Another aspect will be an up-to-date medical report on every player. For example, Andrew Trimble has resumed training after recovering from his worrisome foot injury in the opening warm-up win away to Wales. "He is fit to play," according to Kiss, although Trimble may well play for Ulster away to Edinburgh. But the odds on either Cian Healy and Marty Moore being involved this weekend appear remote.
Moore is due to have a moon boot removed from his injured foot tomorrow, and Healy must remain a doubt despite Kiss reporting further progress.
The odds on Schmidt and co picking six half-backs in their squad, along with two specialist inside centres, appear remote as this would leave only eight other backs in the squad. One possibility would be to pick Ian Madigan as a third-choice scrumhalf.
While Kiss didn’t rule it out, he insisted that Madigan has not run there in training.
“We haven’t trained him at nine at all in any team sessions. Obviously you would have to look at that as an option at some stage in terms of if you lose your two half-backs in a normal game of 23 players. Who is going to cover that? He is one of those guys who, if he is around in the team, can cover that. But it’s not been a major part of our plans.”
Source of concern
The concession of six tries along with 40-plus missed tackles in the two games to date has been a source of concern for Ireland’s defence coach.
“We know there are areas that we’d like to improve in. We’d like to think we’re a lot better than that,” said Kiss.
All the while during this phoney war, Ireland and France have been keeping a beady eye on each other prior to their potentially critical pool finale in Cardiff on October 11th, and the French will have taken encouragement from Ireland's porousness, as well as their own impressive physicality in last Saturday's win over England.
"I am not sure if it was the old France but it was certainly a more committed France," said Kiss. "Every World Cup, they have gone out and delivered. They are primed and ready to go. We know they will be tough.
"Two years ago, when we won the Six Nations, they weren't delivering as they would like, but they delivered that day.
“I am not sure if it is a 30 per cent over a period of time but they can deliver a 30 per cent improvement over the course of a week. That day it was a massive battle and while we were good enough to get the money, we know it will always be a tough gig against them.”
