Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GARRY’S IN AS FARRELL FALLS
GARRY RINGROSE will make his first start of the Six Nations against Scotland as Chris Farrell became the latest centre casualty.
Farrell’s championship is over after suffering ligament damage in a fall during Ireland’s open training session at the Aviva Stadium yesterday.
Ringrose, who had an ankle operation last month, will come back into the side as Bundee Aki’s centre partner against the Scots.
He played for Leinster against the Southern Kings on Friday after training with Ireland last week. He also trained with Schmidt’s squad yesterday.
Meanwhile, Schmidt believes Sean O’brien could be parachuted into Six Nations action on an emergency basis if required.
O’brien, 30, is in danger of missing the entire campaign after undergoing a hip procedure in early January.
However, Schmidt isn’t ruling out a return for the Tullow Tank in the coming weeks, with crucial fixtures to come against Scotland and England.
The Ireland supremo is meeting O’brien (inset) today for a catch-up and to devise a plan for his Test return – if possible.
Schmidt revealed that the Leinster veteran has completed a “couple of good runs” but hasn’t yet been ready for change of direction running or full contact training.
“That means it would be quite tight but at the same time he has come in at short notice (in the past) and done a really good job,” said the Kiwi.
“We got caught short last year against England with Jared Payne who had not played at all in the championship, he really only trained fully on the Thursday.
“We were numbers down at full-back and in that situation he was a player of known value to us and it does inspire players around them.
“So I would have liked to have caught up with Sean earlier, but you don’t really get too much of a window.
“I will catch up with him and we’ll see where we go from there.”