Absent captain Best has good reasons to be fearful as he’s

THIS month, Rory Best will face an unusual and potentially uncomfortable experience as he watches his team play in Australia without him. As he does, he will wonder whether it will be his team when they come back.

Since the 2015 Rugby World Cup, Ireland have played 28 games and Best (inset above) has captained the side in 22 of them.

Three of the games missed came last summer when he was away with the Lions, while Joe Schmidt (inset below) rested him for the wins over Canada in 2016 and Fiji a year later.

The only match of real consequence he was forced to sit out was the Six Nations win over Italy in Rome last year when he suffered a stomach bug on the eve of the game.

He has led his team to history in Chicago and Cape Town and captained them to a Grand Slam, but the lingering doubt surrounding his captaincy has centred on his age and his capacity to lead the team at the World Cup in Japan next year when he will be 37.

Often, we are too quick to rush players into early retirement, but as he maps out his 2019 vision Joe Schmidt must wonder how long the Ulster man can continue to operate at the very highest level.

Already, there are signs that he is slowing down.

Although he was available for every Test match, he has been beset by injuries and started just seven games for Ulster.

He was prominent during the final showdown in Twickenham, but in the other Six Nations games he was probably Ireland’s least influential forward.

After lifting the trophy on that freezing evening in London, Best sat alongside his coach at the post-match press conference when Schmidt was asked by the BBC: “How much would you like to see your Grand Slam skipper stay on and skipper Ireland through to the next World Cup?”

At the time, his contract had been agreed but was yet to be announced, but the head coach was evasive as he slowly and deliberately delivered his answer.

“Look, he’s getting faster and faster on that zimmer frame,” Schmidt said. “That’s something that could come to fruition hopefully sooner rather than later, but it’s like everything. Rory, it’s hard to get him to make a decision, but we’ll see how we go with that.”

The Six Nations was an uncomfortable period for Best who was twice forced to publicly clarify why he had attended the trial of his team-mates Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding in the week of the France match.

However, there has never been any indication that the captaincy was up for debate and, when the squad was announced a week ago, the letter ‘C’ was inked in beside Best’s name as usual. He attended the eve of departure function at the Australian embassy and spoke about the series on stage with Schmidt and Wallaby legend Michael Lynagh. The first word that Best was out came from Schmidt who casually dropped the news into an answer to a question about the big news of the day; Joey Carbery’s move from Leinster to Munster. Although he has yet to finalise