Madigan Dropped as Schmidt Rests Quartet

Ireland Head Coach Joe Schmidt has dropped Leinster's Rabo Pro12 semi-final saviour Ian Madigan ahead of Ireland's tour to Argentina and he rests a number of first team players.

Madigan came off the bench last Saturday to rescue Leinster's Pro12 ambitions with a try, but has to settle for a place on the ermerging Ireland squad who face Russia, Uruguay and Romania in Romania.

"We believe to only take two scrum halves would be very very difficult, so we have gone for three scrum halves. To go with six halve would have been a real tightening of numbers.

The thing for Ian is he hasn't had a lot of game time recently. I've had a really good discussion with him. He is going to come in and train with us, but he will go on the emerging tour and will give him and the likes of Ian Keatley time to get game time over there. We will still be keeping a close eye on that group."

Schmidt has given Sean O'Brien, Tommy Bowe, Gordon D'Arcy and Cian Healy the summer off to focus on getting back to full fitness and get a pre-season behind them with the likes of Sean Cronin and Dan Tuohy also mentioned among those given a break.

"It's really just player management. There are guys who have had continuous niggly injuries that are going to be given a good amount of time in the pre-season to recover from those. Obviously Seanie has come back and played very few minutes. It was a discussion I had with both players (O"Brien and Tommy Bowe).

"There is a number of other players like Cian Healy, Sean Cronin, Dan Tuohy. There are a bunch of guys who we would feel are better served by getting a window to fully recover. They also a number of them have accumulated a number of very brief pre-seasons by the time they go away on June tours, Lions tours and the like."

Schmidt hopes that the team can perform during the tour and retain the consistency which they gathered during their triumphant 6 Nations Championship. The Kiwi felt his side didn't get over the line in their performance against the All Blacks back in November but that they came on in their successful 6 Nations tournament.

"Even though we didn’t quite beat England in the Six Nations, they’re a super team and that’s a very big test to do that. We worked our way through that very well and the challenge for the group is to maintain a consistent high level performance. That would be the primary thing. And, as Paul said, to build a bit depth and competition for those places, to give players an opportunity to demonstrate that they’re at a level. Because any time you go to Argentina it’s going to be combative."

While Darren Cave and Luke Marshall are the only centres in the squad, Schmidt is hoping that Robbie Henshaw, Fergus McFadden and Keith Earls can get game time at centre. But with Leisnter to play in the Rabo Pro12 final in two weeks there may still be some need for replacements and Schmidt knows there are a options there if needed.

"I’ve cross my fingers really. There’s not a lot we can do about that really. There are 10 Leinster players coming on tour and we just have to hope that they’re fully fit at the end of that Pro12 final. Some of things we can do about that is having players on standby. We’ve identified players we’ll confirm at the end of camp that are on standby. Some are in with us training, guys like Ian Madigan who would step in if there was an injury, potentially even an injury in the back three.

"There’s Craig Gilroy who is very much starting to find his form and his footwork again, he’s another guy who wasn’t far away from tour. Tommy O’Donnell slipped off the radar a little bit and probably missed his selection in the last few weeks for Munster. So those guys are still very much in our thinking. Even guys like Mike McCarthy who picked up a bit of an injury and wasn’t available to play last week. If he gets his way through the game it just adds a little bit of depth and who we can go to in various positions."