Ireland Name Extended 44 Player Squad for RBS 6 Nations and O2 Ireland Wolfhounds <\/p>\n
The Ireland coaching staff have announced an extended squad of 44 players for the forthcoming RBS 6 Nations Championships and the O2 Ireland Wolfhounds fixture against England Saxons.<\/p>\n
A number of players currently injured or returning from injury will remain with their provinces to gain further recovery time or game time. They include Richardt Strauss, Donnacha Ryan, Roger Wilson, Tommy Bowe, Simon Zebo, Declan Fitzpatrick and Craig Gilroy. Some of these players may yet return for 6 Nations test matches.<\/p>\n
There is also the injured group of Sean O’Brien, Stephen Ferris, Mike Sherry and Stuart Olding who will be unavailable in the longer term.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s opening fixture of the 6 Nations is against Scotland in the Aviva Stadium on Sunday 2nd February. Reigning 6 Nations champions Wales visit Dublin six days later and Ireland then travel to Twickenham to face England on the 22nd February. <\/p>\n
Ireland’s final home game of the Championships is against Italy on 8th March before the team travels to Paris to take on Saint-Andre’s French side on the 15th March. Ireland’s three home games in the Aviva Stadium are sold out.<\/p>\n
The O2 Ireland Wolfhounds will play England Saxons in Kingsholm, Gloucester on Saturday 25th January with a mixture of youth and experience likely to make up the squad selected for this match. <\/p>\n
Head Coach Joe Schmidt, explained, “As always a number of the selections were very tight. Following on from the Guinness Series, there is an experienced core of players in the squad who will offer continuity, as well as some new additions who have been selected with an eye to the future.<\/p>\n
With Robin Copeland returning to play in Ireland next season it will be an opportunity for him to impress during the training week, while some of the younger or less experienced players such as Rob Herring, Iain Henderson, Rhys Ruddock, Kieran Marmion and Felix Jones have turned in some very positive performances to earn spots in the squad.\u201d<\/p>\n
IRELAND Extended 2014 RBS 6 Nations Championship Squad:<\/p>\n
Forwards (24)
\nRodney Ah You (Buccaneers\/Connacht)*
\nStephen Archer (Cork Constitution\/Munster)
\nRory Best (Banbridge\/Ulster)
\nRobin Copeland (Cardiff Blues)*
\nSean Cronin (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster)
\nRobbie Diack (Malone\/Ulster)*
\nCian Healy (Clontarf\/Leinster)
\nJamie Heaslip (Dublin University\/Leinster)
\nIain Henderson (Ballynahinch\/Ulster)
\nChris Henry (Malone\/Ulster)
\nRob Herring (Ballinahinch\/Ulster)*
\nDavid Kilcoyne (UL Bohemians\/Munster)
\nMike McCarthy (Leinster)
\nJack McGrath (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster)
\nMartin Moore (Lansdowne\/Leinster)*
\nJordi Murphy (Lansdowne\/Leinster)*
\nPaul O’Connell (Young Munster\/Munster)
\nTommy O’Donnell (UL Bohemians\/Munster)
\nPeter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution\/Munster)
\nMike Ross (Clontarf\/Leinster)
\nRhys Ruddock (St Mary’s College\/Leinster)
\nDevin Toner (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\nDan Tuohy (Ballymena\/Ulster)
\nDamian Varley (Garryowen\/Munster)<\/p>\n
Backs (20)
\nIsaac Boss (Terenure College\/Leinster)
\nDarren Cave (Belfast Harlequins\/Ulster)
\nGordon D’Arcy (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\nKeith Earls (Young Munster\/Munster)
\nLuke Fitzgerald (Blackrock College\/Leinster)
\nRobbie Henshaw (Buccaneers\/Connacht)
\nPaddy Jackson (Dungannon\/Ulster)
\nFelix Jones (Shannon\/Munster)
\nDavid Kearney (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\nRob Kearney (UCD\/Leinster)
\nIan Keatley (Young Munster\/Munster)
\nIan Madigan (Blackrock College\/Leinster)
\nKieran Marmion (Corinthians\/Connacht)*
\nLuke Marshall (Ballymena\/Ulster)
\nFergus McFadden (Old Belvedere\/Leinster)
\nConor Murray (Garryowen\/Munster)
\nBrian O’Driscoll (UCD\/Leinster)
\nEoin Reddan (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\nJonathan Sexton (Racing Metro 92)
\nAndrew Trimble (Ballymena\/Ulster)<\/p>\n
*Denotes uncapped player <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ireland Name Extended 44 Player Squad for RBS 6 Nations and O2 Ireland Wolfhounds The Ireland coaching staff have announced an extended squad of 44 players for the forthcoming RBS 6 Nations Championships and the O2 Ireland Wolfhounds fixture against England Saxons. A number of players currently injured or returning from injury will remain with […]<\/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":[6117,4050,7218,6364,7217,5245,17300],"class_list":["post-61823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irish-rugby","tag-6117","tag-ireland","tag-nations","tag-o2","tag-rbs","tag-squad","tag-wolfhounds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61823","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=61823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61825,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61823\/revisions\/61825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}