IRELAND HEAD COACH Joe Schmidt could call his most trusted stalwart Mike Ross back into the Six Nations squad ahead of Saturday’s trip to France, but the tighthead was cantering along nicely at Leinster training today.
A hamstring injury forced Ross to miss the cut when the original squad ‘for the first two rounds of the Six Nations’ was named in January and he was sorely missed as Wales piled on scrum pressure late in the first half to force a try through Taulupe Faletau.
Today, before Ross donated his 127 kgs to the academy’s strength and conditioning department, Girvan Dempsey issued a positive injury update on both of Ireland’s front-line props.
The backs coach reported that Ross is taking a full part in training, while the backroom team were ‘hopeful’ that Healy’s recovery from knee surgery was swift enough to put him in contention to face Zebre in the RDS on Friday.
Yesterday’s fixture was just the third Test in the two and a half years under Schmidt that Ross has not started. And Schmidt hinted post-match that the temptation to cap that run is very real, saying that both Ross and Healy could be on a rugby field next weekend, adding: “we just need to make a decision as to whether that’s for us or for Leinster.”
