Ireland coach Joe Schmidt has left Ian Madigan out of his squad for the summer tour of Argentina with the Leinster outhalf selected on the Emerging Ireland panel.
Racing Metro’s Johnny Sexton, who is “feeling fresh and ready to go”, and Ulster’s Paddy Jackson are the only two outhalves selected in the 30-man panel with Schmidt explaining this morning that Madigan would travel to Emerging Ireland to Romania.
The coach’s decision was influenced by a desire to bring three scrumhalves to Argentina and the lack of games Madigan has played for Leinster of late.
“It’s really that we believe to only take two scrum-halves would be very, very difficult so we’ve gone with three scrum-halves,” he told reporters. “To go with six halves would have been a real tightening on numbers.
The thing for Ian is that he hasn’t had much game time lately. I’ve had a really good discussion with him, he’s going to come in and train with us but he will go on the Emerging Tour and that will give him and the likes of Ian Keatley - who has played really well as well - some game time over there and we will still be keeping a close eye on that group.”
Schmidt has named four uncapped players in his travelling party, with the South African-born Ulster duo of Robbie Diack and Rob Herring qualifying for Ireland on residency grounds. Munster’s James Cronin and Connacht’s Kieran Marmion also make the plane.
A number of front line players have been afforded the summer off to nurse injuries and recover from a bruising season with Tommy Bowe, Gordon D’Arcy, Sean O’Brien, Sean Cronin and Cian Healy among those not considered.
Of those players, Schmidt added: “It’s really just player management, I think there are guys who have had probably continuous niggly injuries that are going to be given a good amount of time in the pre-season to recover from those.
“We believe they will be better served by having a window to rest.
“Obviously Seanie has come back and has played very few minutes, and it was a discussion that I had with both those two players for example, and there are a number of others as well like Cian Healy, Sean Cronin, Dan Tuohy.
“There are a bunch of guys who we believe will be better served by getting a window to fully recover.
“They also, a number of them, have accumulated a number of very brief pre-seasons by the time they go away on Lions tours or the like.”
The knee injury Dave Kearney picked up against Ulster on Saturday evening (the player is due to have a scan this afternoon) has cost him a place in the squad with Simon Zebo, who played no part in Ireland's Six Nations win, benefitting from the Leinster winger's absence.
Ireland will play two tests against the Pumas next month, the first in Resistencia on June 7th before rounding off the series in Tucuman on June 15th with Ireland captain Paul O’Connell expecting a physical battle.
“It’s great, I’ve never toured there myself, it’s a country I’ve never been to either,” said the veteran second row.
“It’s a fairly short tour, we’re only there for three weeks. It’s a tough challenge for us, they’re playing a lot more rugby than in the past so they’ll be well prepared and it will be a tough, physical tour.
“One of the big things Joe had at Leinster was competition for places and when you look at the names travelling to Argentina hopefully it will add to competition for Ireland.”
Ireland squad
Forwards: R Best (Ulster), J Cronin (Munster), R Diack (Ulster), I Henderson (Ulster), C Henry (Ulster), J Heaslip (Leinster), R Herring (Ulster), D Kilcoyne (Munster), J McGrath (Leinster), M Moore (Leinster), J Murphy (Leinster), P O'Connell (capt, Munster), M Ross (Leinster), R Ruddock (Leinster), D Toner (Leinster), D Varley (Munster).
Backs: D Cave (Ulster), K Earls (Munster), R Henshaw (Connacht), P Jackson (Ulster), F Jones (Munster), R Kearney (Leinster), K Marmion (Connacht), L Marshall (Ulster), F McFadden (Leinster), C Murray (Munster), E Reddan (Leinster), J Sexton (Racing Metro), A Trimble (Ulster), S Zebo (Munster).
