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Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 5:26 pm
by Dave
Six Ulster players in the squad:

Five Ulster men have been named among the 32 strong squad - captain Rory Best, Iain Henderson and Jacob Stockdale, who were all part of the Six Nations Grand Slam winning squad, as well as Ulster Player of the Year John Cooney and Rob Herring.

The summer of 2010 was the last time that Ireland last played the Wallabies in Australia with the hosts winning 22-15 at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. Ireland return to Suncorp for the first Test of the series on Saturday 9th June.
 
Ireland will play their first Test against Australia in Melbourne since 2008 where last time out the Wallabies claimed the victory 18-12. The second Test of the 2018 Tour will take place at AAMI Park on Saturday 16th June.
 
The final Test of the series will take place on Saturday 23rd June at the Allianz Stadium in Sydney. Australia hosted Ireland at this venue is 1994 with the Wallabies winning 32-18.
 
Ireland Head Coach Joe Schmidt, commented, “This has probably been the most difficult selection process for the coaching group to date.  We sat down on Monday morning to review the last pieces of footage and to discuss the balance and combinations that we felt we might need in Australia.  
 
At midday today (Wednesday) we made the final decisions which included a number of very tough calls and some players are incredibly unlucky to miss out on selection.  
 
Over the past couple of months the national coaches have spent time in the provinces and been in communication with the provincial coaches who have done a super job in managing the players across the season. 
 
The coaching group are excited by the challenge that this three Test tour will present and from talking to the players we get a sense that they too are excited about going on Tour and testing themselves against one of the best sides in the world in their own backyard.”
 
FORWARDS (18)
 
Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster) c 111 caps
Tadhg Beirne (Scarlets)uncapped
Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster)7 caps
Sean Cronin (St Mary's College/Leinster) 61 caps
Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster) 23 caps
Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster) 78 caps
Iain Henderson (Ballynahinch/Ulster)38 caps
Rob Herring (Ballynahinch/Ulster)3 caps
Dan Leavy (UCD/Leinster)9 caps
Jack McGrath (St Mary's College/Leinster)47 caps
Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne/Leinster)20 caps
Peter O'Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster)47 caps
Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster) 7 caps
Quinn Roux (Galwegians/Connacht)5 caps
James Ryan (UCD/Leinster)8 caps
John Ryan (Cork Constitution/Munster)13 caps
CJ Stander (Shannon/Munster)23 caps
Devin Toner (Lansdowne/Leinster) 58 caps
 
BACKS (14)
 
Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht) 7 caps
Ross Byrne (UCD/Leinster) uncapped
Joey Carbery (Clontarf/Leinster) 10 caps
Andrew Conway (Garryowen/Munster) 6 caps
John Cooney (Terenure College/Ulster) 1 cap
Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster) 67 caps
Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster) 33 caps
Rob Kearney (UCD/Leinster) 83 caps
Jordan Larmour (St Mary's College/Leinster) 3 caps
Kieran Marmion (Corinthians/Connacht) 21 caps
Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster) 64 caps
Garry Ringrose (UCD/Leinster) 13 caps
Johnny Sexton (St Mary's College/Leinster) 73 caps
Jacob Stockdale (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 9 caps
 
IRELAND SUMMER TOUR 2018 FIXTURES
 
Saturday 9th June, 2018
Australia v IRELAND
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)
 
Saturday 16th June, 2018
Australia v IRELAND
AAMI Park, Melbourne, KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)
 
Saturday 23rd June, 2018
Australia v Ireland
Allianz Park, Sydney KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)
 
 

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 5:32 pm
by Dave
Great for Beirne to get selected.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 5:42 pm
by Bring Humph On!!
Pleased for Cooney. Well deserved. I think he will become no 2 to Murray.

Interesting to see who plays at 10. Nothing to be gained by playing Sexton, it’s time to see who can fill in when he’s injured. Byrne would be my pick.

Hopefully Herring will get a good number of minutes, if more than anything to give Rory a rest.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 5:50 pm
by Shan
No Fergus and not enough Kearneys. That's shaacking.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 6:03 pm
by Russ
Paddy dicked over again

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Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 6:17 pm
by jean valjean
So the 3 Leinster 10s are all picked. I wonder if Joe will leave wee Joey out of the first 23 to make a point.

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Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 7:43 pm
by BaggyTrousers
Well deserved for Cooney, I saw this this morning:
ohn Cooney is the statistical winner in the inaugural regular Pro14 season.

The decision by David Nucifora to deny Ruan Pienaar a final contract caused a rare show of total unity in Ulster Rugby last year. Every tier of the Belfast structure complained about the IRFU decision to force another Dublin-born scrumhalf, via Connacht, on them in place of their Springbok hero.

It will never be known how great a loss Pienaar has been but Cooney was a revelation throughout Ulster’s annus horribilis.

The 28-year-old walks away with four statistical accolades as the league’s top points scorer (160), most try assists (10), most penalties (30) and, of lesser importance, the most passes (1410).

He came second in the “clean breaks” category with 24, two shy of the Ospreys Canadian winger Jeff Hassler, and also showed his versatility when shifting on occasion to outhalf.
Good on Red Herring as well though I suspect James Tracey will feel a bit hard done by. Feck him.

I'd have been just as happy if Schmidt had just pick the Mexicans.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:39 pm
by UlsterNo9
jean valjean wrote:So the 3 Leinster 10s are all picked. I wonder if Joe will leave wee Joey out of the first 23 to make a point.

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With / if Cooney made the bench would there be a need to name someone else that can place kick or play out half on the bench.

Is Cooney a plausible option to cover both half back positions.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:44 pm
by Bring Humph On!!
I don’t fancy Cooney as a 10.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:46 pm
by UlsterNo9
Bring Humph On!! wrote:I don’t fancy Cooney as a 10.
Nor me, but realistically he could close out 20 minutes of a game already won there.

Are you saying Carberry is streets ahead of Cooney at 10?

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 10:57 pm
by Bring Humph On!!
I don’t know about streets ahead but I’d prefer him at 10 to Cooney. It’s maybe unfair on Cooney as we haven’t seen that much of him this year at 10 &when we did he was probably playing outside Shanahan which throws a different light on it. They are probably 2 good bench options for Joe as they cover multiple positions.

Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Wed May 23, 2018 11:35 pm
by Russ
Cooney is a better 10 than Carberry

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Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 12:05 am
by Jackie Brown
Russ wrote:Cooney is a better 10 than Carberry

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I'm a better 10 than Carbery

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Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 6:03 am
by Russ
Carberry is a pretty shyte 10 tbh

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Re: Summer tour 2018

Posted: Thu May 24, 2018 7:30 pm
by Spiffsson
BaggyTrousers wrote:Well deserved for Cooney, I saw this this morning:
ohn Cooney is the statistical winner in the inaugural regular Pro14 season.

The decision by David Nucifora to deny Ruan Pienaar a final contract caused a rare show of total unity in Ulster Rugby last year. Every tier of the Belfast structure complained about the IRFU decision to force another Dublin-born scrumhalf, via Connacht, on them in place of their Springbok hero.

It will never be known how great a loss Pienaar has been but Cooney was a revelation throughout Ulster’s annus horribilis.

The 28-year-old walks away with four statistical accolades as the league’s top points scorer (160), most try assists (10), most penalties (30) and, of lesser importance, the most passes (1410).

He came second in the “clean breaks” category with 24, two shy of the Ospreys Canadian winger Jeff Hassler, and also showed his versatility when shifting on occasion to outhalf.
Good on Red Herring as well though I suspect James Tracey will feel a bit hard done by. Feck him.

I'd have been just as happy if Schmidt had just pick the Mexicans.
Never understood how Tracey managed to get picked in the fist place. Ordinary at best, with many Irish hookers a better option.