THE FACE THAT didn’t seem to fit towards the end of 2013 is now part of Ireland’s final 31-man squad.
Darren Cave has had frustrating spells during his international career, but his performances with Ulster have been consistently strong in recent years and his most recent chance in green saw the 28-year-old muscularly push his Ireland claim.
The nine-times capped midfielder was excellent at the Millennium Stadium early last month to set his World Cup marker, having also performed on last summer’s tour of Argentina.
Still, Cave is something of a surprise inclusion in Ireland’s final World Cup squad even if it all makes sense now. The Ulsterman is partly the beneficiary of Joe Schmidt’s decision to travel to the World Cup with only two recognised scrum-halves, Ian Madigan the third choice in that role.
Cave’s status as a pure centre, in comparison with starters Robbie Henshaw and Jared Payne, also played on Schmidt’s mind.
With the midfield situation that we have, we feel we’ve got enough cover, but it’s a little bit of a manufactured midfield,” said the Kiwi at Carton House this afternoon.
“Robbie hadn’t played 12 until he came into this environment, and Jared had played more fullback than 13. Robbie had played more fullback than 13 in recent years too. That’s a little bit manufactured for us.
“We wanted to get one specialist midfielder in there who could play 12 or 13. His flexibility and positivity in the environment are real plusses for us.
“We’ve had the opportunity to get Keith Earls at 13 and Luke Fitzgerald some game time at 13, so we feel that amongst those five, plus Ian Madigan, who can move in there (we’re covered).”
Having mentioned Madigan as an option in the 12 shirt, where he has played extensively for Leinster, Schmidt almost immediately pointed out that stretching Madigan’s training time across scrum-half, out-half and inside centre would have been a huge ask.
I know this might sound complicated because it did seem complicated on Sunday, but having Ian cover nine and 10 as the the third-choice nine, then to expect him to cover 12 as well is a little bit more of an expectation.
“Therefore we wanted to go with a specialist 12/13 and Darren’s performances, both at training and in the match at the Millennium Stadium, meant he was a pretty deserving player to be involved.”
It’s a roundabout route but as Schmidt underlined, Cave has earned his World Cup shot.
