THE QUESTION OF how strong a team Ireland should go with for their first two World Cup games, against Romania and Tonga, was up for discussion on today’s Rugby Weekly Extra, a podcast for subscribers to The 42.
Ireland play Romania in their Pool B opener on 9 September, followed by Tonga on 16 September before they face South Africa and Scotland.
Bernard Jackman, former Dragons coach and Ireland hooker, wondered whether Ireland should hold back in the opening two fixtures. He asked Murray Kinsella, The 42 rugby journalist, whether they should go half strength for Romania and full for Tonga, or the other way around.
“Personally, I’d go second string for Romania, they’re absolutely useless,” said Kinsella. “And then I’d go full for Tonga, get battle hardened.
“Yeah, maybe there’s a risk of injury, but you need an edge a week before you play the Boks. That’s how I’d go. The feeling is, though, or there’s a sense that they might actually go full strength against Romania, which I think would just be a waste of time, it could be 150-nil.”
Jackman said: “Well they’ll have to go full strength against Tonga as well then.”
He added: “Or you go full strength against Tonga, and you have a weaker bench. You don’t want to get into a situation like where we were against Samoa where you have to bring the bench on to salvage something. I think that would be too risky and also may be a bit of a blow in terms of momentum against South Africa.
“I prefer to go half (against Romania), with the likes of (Johnny) Sexton, (Ronán) Kelleher if he needs gametime starting, without taking any risks, and then full, full (against Tonga and South Africa).
Kinsella explained why he favours going full strength after the opening game against Romania.
“You want to be clever and use your squad wisely but it is – and not to diminish how tough it would be to play all those games – seven games and these guys are fit, they’re motivated more than they been in their entire careers and you don’t want to just waste chances to get your frontline team up to speed because, as we’ve seen, they’re not there yet,” he said.
“And that’s the thing, there’s key players for Ireland who understandably haven’t peaked yet and that’s a good thing. But they want to really get going now, Tadhg Beirne has shown glimpses of what he can do but hasn’t been the force that we’ve seen before.
“(Robbie) Henshaw is probably another one . . . not quite at the level that he can get to. That’s the benefit of having those Romania and Tonga games now, and that’s allowing them to get towards a peak for South Africa and then for Scotland and then onwards.”
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