The Ireland team to play New Zealand in the first test of the summer tour has been named and includes two new caps with wing Simon Zebo and prop Declan Fitzpatrick making their first starts in the green jersey at this level.<\/p>\n
Zebo, who is the youngest member of the touring squad at 22, starts on the left wing in a team that has an average age of just over 26 and includes a new centre partnership between Keith Earls and returning captain Brian O\u2019Driscoll, who missed all of the RBS 6 Nations Championship due to injury. <\/p>\n
Fergus McFadden starts on the right wing in a back three that includes Zebo and Rob Kearney at full back. Jonathan Sexton starts at No.10 and is partnered by Conor Murray.<\/p>\n
In the forwards, Declan Fitzpatrick starts at tight head prop after Mike Ross failed to recover sufficiently from the hamstring strain that has been bothering him over the last two weeks. Fitzpatrick will start alongside loose head Cian Healy and hooker Rory Best, who will be winning his 60th cap.<\/p>\n
Dan Touhy make his first start for Ireland in the second row after making his debut against the All Blacks as a replacement in 2010 and will partner Donnacha Ryan. Behind them, Peter O\u2019Mahony, Sean O\u2019Brien and Jamie Heaslip are all named to start in the back row.<\/p>\n
Ireland Team & replacements (1st test v New Zealand, Steinlager Series, Eden Park, Auckland, Saturday, 9th June 2012, kick-off 7.35pm:<\/p>\n
15 \u2013 Rob Kearney (UCD \u2013 Leinster)
\n14 \u2013 Fergus McFadden (Old Belvedere \u2013 Leinster)
\n13 \u2013 Brian O\u2019Driscoll (UCD \u2013 Leinster) Captain
\n12 \u2013 Keith Earls (Young Munster \u2013 Munster)
\n11 \u2013 Simon Zebo (Cork Constitution \u2013 Munster)*
\n10 \u2013 Jonathan Sexton (St.Mary\u2019s College \u2013 Leinster)
\n9 \u2013 Conor Murray (Garryowen \u2013 Munster)
\n1 \u2013 Cian Healy (Clontarf \u2013 Leinster)
\n2 \u2013 Rory Best (Banbridge \u2013 Ulster)
\n3 \u2013 Declan Fitzpatrick (Dungannon \u2013 Ulster)*
\n4 \u2013 Dan Touhy (Ballymena \u2013 Ulster)
\n5 \u2013 Donnacha Ryan (Shannon \u2013 Munster)
\n6 \u2013 Peter O\u2019Mahony (Cork Constitution \u2013 Munster)
\n7 \u2013 Sean O\u2019Brien (Clontarf \u2013 Leinster)
\n8 \u2013 Jamie Heaslip (Naas \u2013 Leinster)<\/p>\n
Replacements:
\n16 \u2013 Sean Cronin (St.Mary\u2019s College \u2013 Leinster)
\n17 \u2013 Ronan Loughney (Galwegians \u2013 Connacht)*
\n18 \u2013 Donncha O\u2019Callaghan (Cork Constitution \u2013 Munster)
\n19 \u2013 Kevin McLaughlin (St.Mary\u2019s College \u2013 Leinster)
\n20 \u2013 Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne \u2013 Leinster)
\n21 \u2013 Ronan O\u2019Gara (Cork Constitution \u2013 Munster)
\n22 \u2013 Darren Cave (Belfast Harlequins \u2013 Ulster)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ireland team to play New Zealand in the first test of the summer tour has been named and includes two new caps with wing Simon Zebo and prop Declan Fitzpatrick making their first starts in the green jersey at this level. Zebo, who is the youngest member of the touring squad at 22, starts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4050,7493,4693,3959,4979,7300],"class_list":["post-28443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irish-rugby","tag-ireland","tag-mens","tag-new","tag-rugby","tag-team","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28446,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28443\/revisions\/28446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}