neiliog93 wrote:Thought it was time to start a match thread for this one. With a home semi-final virtually already secured, it's tempting to field a weakened team here. On the other hand, if we were to rest our entire first team here, they would have a three week break before the Champions' Cup final. As we discovered last year against Scarlets, excessively long breaks are not good from a point of view of being adequately physically ready/technically on song for big matches.
With that in mind, I'd give a few of the older guys with high mileage from this season a rest, but I think a lot of our bench from the Scarlets game need more game time here so that they're sharp for the final. Some of the starters from the Scarlets game are on the bench so as to give them a bit more time two weeks out from a final, but not too much. This match also affords us the chance to match our achievement under Schmidt, which is namely to win 6/6 interprovincial games in a season (no other province has ever done it).
1.J.McGrath 2.Tracy 3.Porter
4.Molony 5.Fardy
6.Jos.Murphy 8.Conan 7.Jor.Murphy
9.McCarthy 10.Carbery 12.Henshaw 13.ROL 14.B.Daly
11.Lowe 15.Larmour
16.B.Byrne 17.E.Byrne 18.Bent 19.Toner 20.Leavy 21.Rock 22.R.Byrne 23.A.Byrne/T.Daly
Henshaw features at 12 to get him more game time after his injury, while Carbery gets more game time at 10. McCarthy comes in to afford Lowe game time, and Larmour could probably do with another game after his return from injury. I don't like the idea of Toner or Fardy having a full three week break between matches, but I would replace Fardy with Dev early in the second half to keep the mileage low and minimise injury risk. Josh Murphy's presence at 6 can help to shore up our line-out, which may be weaker with Tracy in the team and without Toner jumping.
Would be inclined to keep Fardy & Henshaw well away from this.
