Andy Farrell will unveil his trickiest and most interesting selection of this year’s Guinness Six Nations early this afternoon for Sunday’s game against Italy at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 3pm), given his delicate balancing act this week included weighing up the cases for recalling Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and James Lowe, while almost certainly affording Dan Sheehan his first Test start at hooker and shaking up the match-day 23 in other areas.
Affording Joey Carbery back-to-back starts would be the most delicate call of all but it is something that the Irish coaches have apparently been considering.
Sexton has been training fully for the past week after missing the defeat by France in Paris with a hamstring twinge, while Lowe marked his 27-minute cameo for Leinster last week with a long-range try after missing both of Ireland’s opening two games with a hamstring injury.
Henshaw played the l …
- February 25, 2022
