Cian Healy named to start in Ireland team to face Romania

He can be nearly too good for Ireland’s good. However, when Joe Schmidt reviewed the kicking game of this weekend’s opponents he would have recognised that one of the undoubted strengths of his side also happens to be a real weakness for Romania.

Okay, there was typical impact from his final quarter entrance against Canada.

Zebo, Bowe, Payne, Cave, Earls, Madigan, Reddan, Healy, Strauss, White, Ryan, Toner, Murphy, Henry, Heaslip (captain). Cave needs to produce a top-class performance against Romania to have any hope of altering Schmidt’s long-range selection plans.

“He just got a bit of a knock on the knee in the game, it’s nothing major and it’s just a case of trying to manage the players and make sure he’s okay for the weekend”.

Romania’s Valentin Ursache falls over as France’s Bernard Le Roux tackles Madalin Lemnaru during the Rugby World Cup Pool D match between France and Romania at the Olympic Stadium, London, Wednesday, September 23, 2015. It’s just: “can he continue as he is?” “Similar to the way I am approaching out-half this week, I’m not going in there to make scintillating breaks, I’m going in there to facilitate other guys around me and if those opportunities present themselves, that’s well and good, but that is not how I will approach the game”. Again, it’s more of the same.

“He wants to get involved”.

The 30-year-old was originally named in Lynn Howells’ starting XV but is now replaced by Viorel Lucaci at blind-side.

He is still the closest thing Ireland have to unbreakable.

The back row is formed by Chris Henry, captain Jamie Heaslip and Jordi Murphy, who starts on the blindside flank for this fixture.

Henshaw, along with New Zealand-born Jared Payne, have been the Six Nations winning centre combinations for the last two years. Now Cave has his chance to prove his point against Romania, with regular starting inside centre Robbie Henshaw sidelined through hamstring trouble. Soft tissue injuries can be quite complicated. Ross has been one of the most consistently-selected players over the last few years for Ireland and with injury ruling Marty Moore out of this World Cup, there are doubts over whether or not Ross’ replacements can survive in the scrums against bigger teams.

“I think we had a period after half time where we made mistakes which is disappointing”. Fatigue certainly looked to have affected the Japanese, who had taken the greatest scalp in Rugby World Cup history by beating South Africa in their opening match but then had only four days to recover before playing Scotland.