JOE GOES FOR JOEY New Reds ace gets No.10 chance

JOE SCHMIDT last night revealed that the plan to run with Joey Carbery at No.10 in the first Test against Australia was hatched in Dublin last week.

The Ireland coach is willing to take a gamble on Carbery, selecting him at out-half in a major game ahead of Johnny Sexton for the first time for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, 32-year-old Sexton has been in the wars with Leinster in recent weeks, playing a hugely influential role in the clinching of the Champions

Cup and PRO14 final double.

And Schmidt has next year’s World Cup in mind as much as Ireland’s current 12-game winning streak that is under serious threat at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane tomorrow morning.

Schmidt (inset) said: “People are deferential to Johnny because he has been in the seat for a long time.

“But if he has been in the seat for a long time and no one else gets to sit in it, then we just leave ourselves a little bit exposed if he’s not in the seat.

“It’s a super opportunity for young Joey to try and make sure he learns a bit each opportunity he does get.”

Schmidt’s thinking is influenced by what occurred at the last injury-hit World Cup and he has been building squad depth ever since.

The 22-year-old will line out alongside Conor Murray in a half-back partnership that Munster hopes will be the fulcrum of future success for the province. Schmidt added: “One of the things with Joey was that we really wanted to get him out at No.10 at some stage and we thought the best window was to give him the longest preparation window possible.

“Before we had left Dublin and his move to Munster was announced, we had already talked about giving him this opportunity so we decided to forge ahead with it.

“It was an opportunity that would have been harder to engineer later in the tour.

“We trained last Thursday back in Ireland, then we really trained fully on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, so within those three trainings it gave Joey an opportunity to slot himself in there.”