IT’S THE FINAL PUSH

Ending the pool stages with a must-win game was not part of the plan but Ireland have to find focus

THERE are no more tomorrows. Ireland are no longer playing a long game at the Rugby World Cup. As the team for Samoa named this morning confirms, the time for strategising is at an end.

Starting on Saturday morning, the most important match is the next match.

And it was supposed that we would reach that urgent state, when no day is more vital than today, in the knock-out stages.

It was presumed that, like every other ambitious, tier-one nation, Ireland would get through the pool stages by addressing the big challenge (Scotland) in round one, then resolving the other tests with one eye on resting stars and ensuring that, come the quarterfinals, the main men were ready to play.

Instead, in the final round of pool action, Ireland are submerged early in the business of win or bust.

Happily for them, they have a tier-two rival in Samoa with which to contend and, even given the awful form that has descended on the group like a virus since the win over the Scots, they should be good enough to win.

Doing it with a bonus point is another matter entirely, and coming off the pitch with the team’s most important players fit and ready for the last eight is also an uncertain wish.

The Samoans are famous, and occasionally infamous, for their physical approach. Two of their players had yellow cards upgraded to reds after their opening win over Russia.

That resulted in three-match suspensions that will keep them out of the rest of the pool stages, and limit the Samoans to a squad of 29, as suspended players cannot be replaced.

They had another man sent off for receiving two yellow cards in losing to Scotland.

Discipline is a problem, but a reported sense of injustice at how they have been treated by World Rugby over these incidents could also stiffen their motivation for what will be their last match at this tournament.

Anything with the potential to complicate Saturday’s challenge is not good news for Joe Schmidt.

He had no other option but to pick his strongest side for this game — not that this approach is risk-free, either.

Fitness dictates the selection of Jordan Larmour ahead of Rob Kearney at full-back.

There may be talk of the Leinster veteran being ‘managed’ but if he was fit he would be starting a match in which Ireland will have to be as mindful of security as they are of chasing a four-try bonus point.

Kearney has been one of the better Irish players at this World Cup, and his absence is a loss.

The return of Robbie Henshaw allows Schmidt to pick a midfield that many suspected was his preferred one before the Leinster centre damaged a hamstring within days of arriving in Japan.

Garry Ringrose is the Irish player most likely to summon an unexpected play, to wrong-foot a defence with an imaginative flourish, but before the squad departed for the tournament, Schmidt had talked about Ringrose’s adaptability, as if he was preparing the player and anyone else listening for a role as an auxiliary sub.

Henshaw’s injury saw him play instead, but in pairing Aki and Henshaw, Schmidt is putting out an established partnership that is defensively sound and powerful, if predictable going the other way.

Peter O’Mahony has not been in good form but his omission seems a matter of rest rather than ruthless selection.

He is part of Schmidt’s preferred back row but another member of that favoured unit, CJ Stander, has barely had time to sit since the injuries to Jack Conan and, latterly, Jordi Murphy.

If he cannot be rested, then O’Mahony can and it means there will be at least one Irish loose forward reasonably fresh come the quarter-finals.

Rhys Ruddock should be feeling hard done by this morning — but Schmidt’s logic is equally clear.

Ruddock was very good against Russia, and he brought the virtues of discipline, hard work and power to bear on a big, limited opposing pack. However, in picking Tadhg Beirne to start, Schmidt is giving Rory Best two excellent lineout targets, in Beirne and James Ryan.

If Ireland are to start regaining their best form, then excellence at the lineout is essential and giving Best as much help as can be mustered is important in that regard, hence the presence of Beirne.

Inscrutable as the faces in the Irish coaches’ box look during a match, don’t doubt for a moment that they will not be concerned about the fitness of key players.

Somewhere in the permutations discussed among the management, was a plan that would have seen Ireland qualified by now.

And in that reckoning, a team staffed heavily by second-stringers would play the final pool match against opponents already half-way home by the fourth round of matches.

That catastrophic loss to Japan sent Ireland’s plans spinning, though. The reverberations of that loss are still being felt, which is why Johnny Sexton, in particular, is obliged to lace his boots.

That he was replaced at half time against Russia illustrated it, too; had Ireland beaten the Japanese, Sexton might have played 40 minutes against the Russians and then rested until next weekend, and that match against New Zealand or South Africa.

The Japan defeat brought the luxury of planning to an end for Schmidt. It stopped being about tomorrow. There is no tomorrow until the job is concluded against the Samoans.

This time they should be good enough to do what is necessary.

Then, it will be down to the delicate business of assessing fitness before a game against one of the two best teams on the planet.

That, though, is to drift into tomorrow. And Ireland can’t think of that yet.