Hugo Keenan trains as Ireland declare clean bill of health for England clash
Hugo Keenan, Garry Ringrose, Iain Henderson and Oli Jager took a full part in the session.
Keenan, whose left knee was heavily strapped, missed the win over Wales with a knee injury, while Iain Henderson was ruled out with a toe issue.
Jager missed training last week with a knee injury, while Ringrose has yet to feature in the Six Nations after damaging his shoulder in January.
Andy Farrell names his team on Thursday and the players will need to come through a more physically intense session tomorrow, but scrum coach John Fogarty says all four are available and the availability of both world class backs poses a selection conundrum.
Ringrose faces a huge battle to dislodge RobbIe Henshaw in the outside centre slot, but Keenan would likely come in for Ciarán Frawley if declared fit.
The dilemma then extends to the bench, where Ireland have selected a six/two split of forwards and backs to great effect in the recent games.
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Frawley covers more positions than Ringrose or Henshaw, but the midfielders are established operators while combination of James Ryan, Ryan Baird and Jack Conan have been excellent off the bench.
“Garry and Hugo, Hendy all trained today, Oli as well,” Fogarty said.
“It’s such an important day for us to be on the field. A healthy squad training today is important for selection and it was great they were all on the field.
“Hugo trained today. Again ,they are on the road to recovery and training on the field today live was important for them.
“We’ll see how they got through the session. We’ve another session tomorrow, which is the most physical session of the week where we’ll properly test our plan and the players so we’ll see how he gets through tomorrow and then Andy will select his side.”
Fogarty was asked about the intensity level of today’s training session.
“It’s full speed, there’s no huge contact in it, it’s kind of a coaching day,” he said.
“Monday is forming a plan, Tuesday we put it on the field and we’ll see the timings of our launch plays and how our defence work and tomorrow we’ll test that.”
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It's a bit of bad timing for some of the other options. JOB would probably be right in there. I like Frawley, but I'd worry about his relative lack of pace for FB
Didn't realise we were going for 5 in a row against England, they really don't have a Plan B, our defence against them has been really good the last few years
If true could be a blessing in disguise, I would say Farrell and co have been great at getting positions covered, even during Sextons time they were giving others a run but the one position neglected was FB. Thats likely down to him being very good and consistently available. If Frawley got the nod for the next two games it would be great for him and Ireland. I would say he's slightly weak under the high ball given his performance v Wales but I would put that down to inconsistency in him being picked in various positions.
He's a tall man but take Lowry, quite small but actually excellent under the high ball cause he's played so much at 15.
OTBAM just alluded to Kennan being out for remainder of 6 nations, they didnt categorically say it but definitely dropped a big hint.
Chicken life > thug life
I wouldn't be surprised if there were lots of attack training sessions but May wasn't invited. He always just seemed to do whatever came into his head, often with devastating effects
Heard Johnny may on a podcast say Eddie Jones never worked on attack. Just defence and line speed. Tries could be scored off turnover and mistakes. Was going to start an attack in the year before the world Cup.
What odds can I get for Ringrose scoring a try on a chip through from Crowley, over the top of a completely mis-timed blitz by the English D?
The ball looked like a foreign object to the English players v Scotland. 25 handling errors!
Ollie Lawrence had a shocker. Presume the old nemesis Tuilagi will return at 12 for the auld enemy on Sat.
Highly unlikely Ringrose will come straight back into the side. Wouldn't be surprised to see him back at 23 though.
Bench of Ryan, Baird, *Byrne, Murray, and Ringrose/SMcC makes more sense to me than Murray and McCloskey/Ringrose.
Thornley on Second Captains:
You can understand how the backs might be frustrated. A lot of the English media and public will just blame their backs and criticise the half backs for kicking ther ball away when moves break down.
It's all a big plot for England to announce Mike Catt as their attack saviour after our SA tour is over in July. 😁
Like most coachs over the last few years brought into England, they are brought in and everyone is told they are fantastic, give it a few months and then they are the problem.
After last WC Jones hired a coach from SA and it was the same, England going on they have hired the guy that won the WC for SA, give it a few years and people saying he was one of the reasons England went backwards
They are doing it the right way. Get the defense right first and then focus on something else. Players are idiots.
Felix Jones not making a great first impression it seems.
Scotland are a bit reminiscent of French teams away from home.....who knows which team would turn up.
If italy get a good start then Scottish heads have a tendancy to drop
Dont underestimate how terrible France are.
Scotland will beat Italy with a BP.
I never said they would beat us though, just that they will give us a tougher game at home than England will in Twickenham.
I don't think SA or NZ would beat us in Dublin never mind Scotland.
I'm not even that sure Scotland will best Italy.
The talk was a return for the England game time wise. Maybe cardiff will be too early.
Not to be going to far ahead but i think the Scotland game a week later will actually be a much tougher test. They will be gunning for us and could have a mathematical chance of winning the comp.
Giving him a run for Leinster would be no harm.
At least then he has the opportunity to play his way past one of the other two, who have both been very good.
It would be very harsh to drop Henshaw. I think it’ll come down to if a 6-2 split is used or not.
Big call to be made on Ringrose.
Henshaw hasnt done anything wrong, but it could be worth getting ringrose gametime. Aki is undroppable so does ringrose come onto the bench for Mccloskey or should he maybe play URC at the weekend if he is available?
Its probably the biggest selection facing the mgt team ahead of twickenham
It's good to see we're all concerned that baby Bealham is getting bonding time with his Da!
If they just wanted to give Jager a go, Bealham would have been 24th man. He’d be next up in case of a last minute injury. There must have been some sort of agreement that he wasn’t required last week and could spend time with his new family. It can be squad rotation and good management on a personal level from Farrell.
??
Absolutely no one is saying that? Did you misread?
I've already given you the reason that Andy Farrell himself gave. There is no ulterior motive here
The fact Bealham wasn’t there as the 24th man would suggest that he was also given time off for some reason. No way he’s dropped to fourth choice.
The reason Farrell gave for giving Jager the bench spot was that they wanted to see what he was like.
There was no suggestion that Bealham needed a rest, it was simply squad rotation
Scrummaging against England is probably a welcome break for him!
Wonder if Bealham was rested! He just became a father.
Could also mean jager is carrying a knock
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