Two Athlonians make Rugby World Cup squad

Jack Carty and Robbie Henshaw have been named in Ireland's Rugby World Cup squad.

Head coach Joe Schmidt named the 31-man squad at lunchtime and Carty has made the cut after a man of the match display against Wales at the weekend.

Carty (pictured) is one of three out halves named in the squad along with Johnny Sexton and Joey Carbery, with Leinster's Ross Byrne losing out.

 

The squad is captained by Rory Best who will play at a fourth Rugby World Cup having been involved in the 2007, 2011, 2015 editions.

Six of the squad named featured at the previous two Rugby World Cups (2011 & 2015) – Sean Cronin, Keith Earls, Cian Healy, Rob Kearney, Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton, while a further five played in the 2015 tournament – Tadhg Furlong, Iain Henderson, Robbie Henshaw, Peter O’Mahony and Rhys Ruddock

The remaining 19 players will be making their Rugby World Cup debuts – Bundee Aki, Tadgh Beirne, Joey Carbery, Jack Carty, Jack Conan, Andrew Conway, Chris Farrell, Dave Kilcoyne, Jean Kleyn, Jordan Larmour, Luke McGrath, Andrew Porter, James Ryan, John Ryan, Niall Scannell, CJ Stander, Garry Ringrose, Jacob Stockdale and Josh van der Flier.

The squad will travel to Japan on September 11.

Ireland are in Pool A and will play Scotland, Japan, Russia and Samoa. Ireland’s opening fixture is against Scotland at the Yokohama Stadium in Tokyo.

Six days later Ireland will take on tournament hosts Japan in Shizuoka before playing Russia in Kobe the following Thursday. Ireland’s final pool game is against Samoa on Saturday, October 12, in Fukuoka.

 

Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt, commented: “It was a difficult thing right from the start to have the 45 that we had. We went down to 40 players and to go from 40 down to 31 was really difficult, but we had a process whereby we looked back through every training, looked through the games.

“There were some guys who obviously had more experience and probably had more credit in the bank and were more established and there were other guys who were trying to force their way into group and trying to get a balance of current form versus previous performance, it’s always a very very difficult conundrum to try to solve.

“It was one of those typical selection meetings where maybe 20-25 of the players are listed straight away and it’s those ones where you’re are trying to get balance where it’s very difficult to choose between two players and two players offer slightly different things and you’re trying then to narrow down and trying to get the best balance across the squad of the entire 31 because that’s part of what you need to do because you’ve got to make sure you have cover that’s immediate even though you can replace players there is obviously a big time delay in that.”

Ireland – Rugby World Cup Squad 2019

Forwards (17)

Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster) 119 caps CAPTAIN

Tadhg Beirne (Lansdowne/Munster) 8 caps

Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster) 15 caps

Sean Cronin (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 69 caps

Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster) 35 caps

Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster) 90 caps

Dave Kilcoyne (UL Bohemians/Munster) 30 caps

Iain Henderson (Queens University/Ulster) 47 caps

Jean Kleyn (Munster) 2 caps

Peter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster) 59 caps

Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster) 17 caps

Rhys Ruddock (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 22 caps

James Ryan (UCD/Leinster) 18 caps

John Ryan (Cork Constitution/Munster) 20 caps

Niall Scannell (Dolphin/Munster) 16 caps

CJ Stander (Shannon/Munster) 32 caps

Josh van der Flier (UCD/Leinster) 18 caps

 

Backs (14)

Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht) 19 caps

Joey Carbery (Clontarf/Munster) 19 caps

Jack Carty (Buccaneers/Connacht) 6 caps

Andrew Conway (Garryowen/Munster) 15 caps

Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster) 77 caps

Chris Farrell (Young Munster/Munster) 5 caps

Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster) 37 caps

Rob Kearney (UCD/Leinster) 91 caps

Jordan Larmour (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 15 caps

Luke McGrath (UCD/Leinster) 13 caps

Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster) 73 caps

Garry Ringrose (UCD/Leinster) 23 caps

Jonathan Sexton (St Marys College/Leinster) 83 caps

Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster) 20 caps