The road to glory: France v Ireland

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Best, Wallace and Trimble are included in the Ireland side for Saturday night’s World Cup warm up match against France.

Trimble features in an unchanged back three alongside Kearney and Fitzgerald. Wallace keeps his spot at inside centre, this time partnering Earls in a combination that should be difficult to read for both sets of players! 

Best joins a much beefed up pack and the Ulster man will need to find his arrows early and maintain his control of the scrums if he is going to see off the clamour for the return of Jerry Flannery who benches for the second game in a row. I’m expecting a difficult enough night for the Ulster hooker with France having a definite advantage in the front five. It could be one of those game where Rory does all the hard work keeping the scrum secure and the Flan comes on for a 15 minute burst to steal the glory!

With a big French pack, it’s going to be a tough enough challenge for Ireland, but they should be boosted with the return of Ryan and O’Brien to the backrow which should help around the park. However, with Dusatour, Harinordoquy . . .

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One response to “The road to glory: France v Ireland”

  1. the mote

    This has a look of a team which could struggle once more for possession. It is also a side to assist DK in decideing who to take and who to leave behind

    The squad contains 7 wing/ back 3 players– Bowe Trimble Fitzgerald Earls Kearney Jones and Murphy 8 if you include McFadden my guess would be that Bowe Earls and Kearney have already got their tickets. and its perm 3 from five time . Hence a second look at Trimble and Fitz I believe Jones is in the squad and would only go if Kearney breaks down before the plane takes off ie I can see DK taking an inexperienced player to the World Cup but only as a pick of last resort..

    In the forwards he has Mick o’ D, McCarthy Leamy Don Ryan as Backrow /Second Row Bench men I expect only one of them to be on the plane

    O Leary and Boss had an outing last week with Sexton hence Redden and Murphy with RoG

    Springer has yet to feature but will at some stage again for DK its perm 3 from 5.

    Thus I believe the teams selected have little to do with winning but a lot to do with can you justify a ticket

    Wallace has to perform a good better than last week to survive and is in my view in the last chance saloon if he fails in the first half I can see McFadden coming in at 12 if he performs then he’s on the plane.

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