Henshaw out again as Ireland pick oldest XV

JOE SCHMIDT named Ireland’s oldest ever World Cup starting XV yesterday, with robbie henshaw left out once again. The Connacht centre (right) suffered a hamstring injury earlier this month and sat out Ireland’s 50-7 victory over Canada last weekend. With crucial Pool D clashes with Italy and France looming, Ireland coach Schmidt will not want to risk the 22-year-old in tomorrow’s Wembley date with romania. Instead, No 12 Darren Cave links up in midfield with Jared Payne. The average age of an Irish XV showing 12 changes from the Canada match is 29 years and 245 days, beating their previous record of 29 years and 219 days set against Georgia in 2007. eoin reddan, 54 days short of his 35th birthday, is the oldest player in the side. ‘We don’t know how many big games there are to come,’ said Schmidt. ‘We know that we’ve got Italy and then France and we have to make sure we’re nailed on for those to get something beyond that. ‘What we didn’t want to do was select robbie for this game and then for him maybe to miss the next two matches.’ IRELAND (v Romania): Zebo; Bowe, Payne, Cave, Earls; Madigan, Reddan; Healy, Strauss, White; Ryan, Toner; Murphy,

RORY KEANE