“Yeah… I suppose.”
So responded Jamie Heaslip to the question, ‘Is it a good thing Irish rugby has another province winning trophies?’
Joe Schmidt and six of his Irish players were at the Aviva Stadium to help promote a new, sponsorship deal with Vodafone Ireland. Once discussion of the four-year sponsorship was out of the way, talk turned to the only rugby story in town over the weekend – Connacht.
Pat Lam’s men are PRO12 champions and the general public, as generally happens, are non-plussed.
Fourteen Leinster players made the Ireland squad for the summer tour to South Africa while only five from Connacht made it [including Leinster-bound Robbie Henshaw].
That Leinster number was reduced to 13, today, when Luke Fitzgerald withdrew with a knee injury. Some statements are made for ‘CTRL C’.
The favourites to replace the unfortunate Fitzgerald are Connacht left winger Matt Healy and the versatile Craig Gilroy. Both men finished the season in fine form – Gilroy was PRO12 joint top try-scorer while Healy, who he shared the honour with, blazed in a try in Saturday’s 20-10 win over Leinster.
Connacht cut Leinster to ribbons and prove Joe Schmidt wrong in the thrilling process https://t.co/roSCxqkbej
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 28, 2016
27-year-old Healy, who signed for Connacht two seasons ago and finished the final in Edinburgh as emergency scrum-half, looks the favourite for senior squad inclusion.
“Matt would certainly be one of the guys [we are considering],” Schmidt said. “One of the advantages with him is he’s a left-footed left winger – like for like with Luke Fitzgerald and he’d be certainly a guy who’s in contention.
“Some of those decisions might have been able to be made this morning but we haven’t had the opportunity to get together. We’ll make decisions this evening and we’ll have someone else in camp tomorrow and it could well be Matt.”
Still, the Connacht questions kept coming. Schmidt stated that playing expansive, high risk-reward rugby would be even tougher to pull off at Test level but congratulated the westerners on their title success. At one stage, he conceded, “You’re never going to get every decision right.”
Here's the lads in the new kit. Great new look with @canterburyNZ & @VodafoneIreland #TeamOfUs pic.twitter.com/W1KvwTH9HU
— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) May 30, 2016
The New Zealander was asked about the Connacht back three – Healy, Tiernan O’Halloran and Niyi Adeolokun – that infiltrated Leinster at will.
“The back three were outstanding at the weekend. Between Matt and Tiernan, they had a super game and that immediately put pressure on their opponents.”
Interview wrapped, we moved on to Heaslip. He paid dues to Connacht again and allowed himself a brief smile when asked if Ireland should play like Connacht against the Springboks.
“I’ll do whatever the boss says.”
The boss will not be making any radical changes with Ireland yet. He’s three years into his tenure and he has already delivered two Six Nations championships.
Connacht are not going away any time soon, though, and that definitely is good news for Irish rugby.
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