Why Chris Farrell is the clear choice to replace injured Robbie Henshaw

Henshaw has been ruled out for the remainder of the tournament.

While Ireland boss Joe Schmidt was handed a boost with news that Tadhg Furlong is expected to be fit for the visit of Wales to Dublin on February 24th, it was confirmed Monday Robbie Henshaw will miss the rest of the Six Nations after undergoing surgery on his injured shoulder. The Leinster centre sustained the injury while scoring the second try in Ireland's thumping 56-19 bonus-point win over Italy at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday. While the news on Furlong was more positive, confirmation that Henshaw's campaign is over comes as a blow Schmidt's men. Anticipating that bad news was forthcoming, the panel on The Hard Yards discussed potential Henshaw replacements, with one man emerging as the favourite to come in and fill the void.

"It's interesting to hear that Earls was discussed as an option because we hadn't really thought about it but I think I'd prefer to keep him out on the right wing, where he's flying," Pat McCarry said. "Ringrose was brought up in the post-match press conference but Schmidt was almost saying that he has the quality but it might be a game too soon for him. It would be interesting to see if Ringrose gets a game at the weekend against Scarlets, but it would be a lot to throw him in against the Welsh."

https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/963055642842890240 James Downey, who of course knows a little something about playing centre, said that Chris Farrell would be the ideal candidate to replace Henshaw.

"I'd be thinking Farrell as well. The Welsh midfield are very abrasive, very physical so I think Chris would match up nicely. I think Rory Scannell is an option and he's very physical in his own right but I just think, against the Welsh, they might want to tighten thing up a little bit and go with Chris. The important thing is they have time so it will be interesting to see who gets released to play this weekend."

It will be interesting to see what Schmidt does for the Wales game but, as The Hard Yards panel pointed out, it looks like Ireland are going to have an inexperienced pairing in the middle whoever the manager picks. Picking Earls would be counter-productive seeing that he has flourished from a wide position, so it may well turn out to be Farrell's chance to shine.