The Ireland team to play Wales in the opening game of the RBS 6 Nations Championship next Saturday in the Millennium Stadium has been named.<\/p>\n
In the backline, Gordon D\u2019Arcy and Brian O\u2019Driscoll will partner each other in the centre for a world record 48th time at international level.<\/p>\n
Rob Kearney returns to international rugby and starts at full back to win his 42nd cap with Simon Zebo and Craig Gilroy named on the wings.<\/p>\n
Second rows Mike McCarthy and Donnacha Ryan will start a championship game together for the first time, with McCarthy making his first start in the tournament having featured as a replacement last season.<\/p>\n
Sean O\u2019Brien returns to the starting team after missing the November internationals in a back row that includes Peter O\u2019Mahony and Jamie Heaslip, who will captain Ireland in the RBS 6 Nations Championship for the first time.<\/p>\n
The Ireland Team to play Wales on Saturday, 2nd February 2013 in Millennium Stadium, Cardiff in the RBS 6 Nations Championship, Kick off 1.30pm is:<\/p>\n
(Player\/club\/province\/international caps):<\/p>\n
15 – Rob Kearney (UCD\/Leinster\/41)
\n14 – Craig Gilroy (Dungannon\/Ulster\/1)
\n13 – Brian O’Driscoll (UCD\/Leinster\/120)
\n12 – Gordon D’Arcy (Lansdowne\/Leinster\/71)
\n11 – Simon Zebo (Cork Constitution\/Munster\/3)
\n10 – Jonathan Sexton (St.Mary\u2019s College\/Leinster\/34)
\n9 – Conor Murray (Garryowen\/Munster\/14)
\n1 – Cian Healy (Clontarf\/Leinster\/35)
\n2 – Rory Best (Banbridge\/Ulster\/62)
\n3 – Mike Ross (Clontarf\/Leinster\/24)
\n4 – Mike McCarthy (Buccaneers\/Connacht\/6)
\n5 – Donnacha Ryan (Shannon\/Munster\/23)
\n6 – Peter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution\/Munster\/9)
\n7 – Sean O\u2019Brien (UCD\/Leinster\/22)
\n8 – Jamie Heaslip (Dublin University\/Leinster\/52) Captain<\/p>\n
Replacements:
\n16 – Sean Cronin (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster\/23)
\n17 – David Kilcoyne (UL Bohemians\/Munster\/2)
\n18 – Declan Fitzpatrick (Dungannon\/Ulster\/2)
\n19 – Donncha O’Callaghan (Cork Constitution\/Munster\/91)
\n20 – Chris Henry (Malone\/Ulster\/4)
\n21 – Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne\/Leinster\/47)
\n22 – Ronan O’Gara (Cork Constitution\/Munster\/126)
\n23 – Keith Earls (Young Munster\/Munster\/34)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ireland team to play Wales in the opening game of the RBS 6 Nations Championship next Saturday in the Millennium Stadium has been named. In the backline, Gordon D\u2019Arcy and Brian O\u2019Driscoll will partner each other in the centre for a world record 48th time at international level. Rob Kearney returns to international rugby […]<\/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":[7894,4050,6332,7218,3959,7602,4979],"class_list":["post-40739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irish-rugby","tag-7894","tag-ireland","tag-named","tag-nations","tag-rugby","tag-six","tag-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40739","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=40739"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40743,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40739\/revisions\/40743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}