There were originally 12 and now there are 13, a baker’s dozen of uncapped players with the addition of the 22-year-old Ulster loosehead Scott Wilson to the Ireland squad for the two-Test tour to Georgia and Portugal. The group swaps Abbotstown for Tbilisi on Wednesday.
Wilson adds to the overall number (33) and no one is injured. There was good news in that respect when it was announced that Tom Ahern has shrugged off the hamstring injury that saw Josh Murphy called into training at the tail end of last week.
The Connacht man won’t travel nor will any of the training panellists – Brian Gleeson, Diarmuid Kilgallen, Evan O’Connell, Jude Postlethwaite and Zac Ward. The IRFU also confirmed that the two Tests, against Georgia on Saturday (6pm, Irish time) and Portugal in Lisbon (7.0, Irish time), seven days later on July 12th, will be screened live on Virgin Media, while the games will also be on RugbyPass TV.
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The shape and style will be straight from the Ireland senior playbook and what the interim coaching team is looking for are players who successfully adapt to that model over the course of the two games. Defence coach Denis Leamy is familiar with many of the playing squad. He said: “It [the game plan] will be very, very similar, if not the same.
“That’s the plan: to play the Irish way and to try to do it as well as we can. Obviously, we’re missing a big chunk of the players who have gone to Australia with the Lions but it’s a great opportunity for the boys coming in to show what they can do and just build on some of the things that have [been] done to date.
“A lot of the boys I’ve worked with at either Leinster or Irish under-20s level. It’s lovely to see them develop as players, how they’ve grown into men and how they’ve developed their own perspective on the game, their own opinions.
“It’s excellent to be back in, around them. We just find when it’s a national set-up, that there is unity straight away, that they all mix. My generation [as a player], there was huge rivalry [between the players]. It took us a few weeks for the frostiness to wear off,” he said with a smile.
“The boys just seem to get on so well. They’re straight in, best mates, constantly over and back on WhatsApp and all the different platforms. It’s better than when I was a player. They’ve grown up a little bit from when we were.”
One of those players to come up in conversation was Munster number eight Gavin Coombes, who’s looked “fit and hungry and trained well”, and can be a key figure for Ireland on Saturday if he brings his playing virtues to bear.
Leamy explained: “Gavin has been in and out of Irish squads over the last couple of years. The times he’s been left out, he’s understood the reasons why and [they] have been very fair. Gavin has gone away and worked hard on those parts of the games. He’s back in now and he has that chance on Saturday.
“He’s hugely strong around opposition 22. His ability to make yards, score tries, he’s one of the best around at that and his general play is improving all the time.
“His ability to make yards in open play, his ability to clock up big numbers in his tackles, his rucks and the fundamentals around his basic play, he’s learning and improving that all the time. That’s why he’s back in this environment.”
Leamy paid tribute to his former team-mate and the Ireland interim head coach Paul O’Connell in helping the coaching group to hit the ground quickly.
“Paul has helped us greatly in terms of giving us a very, very clear, pretty narrow brief in terms of what we want to get across to them because we’re only together for three weeks, counting last week.
“It’s important that you don’t overload players. We’re trying to keep things pretty tight, have a very distinct game plan and just keep reinforcing that with our language. It’s pretty easy from that point of view. But the challenge is to get that workload through them as well.”
Oh, and in terms of the hurling this weekend, Leamy is unequivocal. “I think it’s going to be a very, very close game but Kilkenny will always get the best out of Tipperary. Tipp by a point.”
