Ireland name team to face Italy in Rome<\/p>\n
The Ireland coaching staff has named the team that will line out in its opening fixture of the 2015 RBS 6 Nations Championship.<\/p>\n
Paul O’Connell captain’s the side on his 97th cap for his country and is partnered in the second row by Devin Toner. The front-row is made up of Jack McGrath, Rory Best and Mike Ross.<\/p>\n
The back-row consists of Peter O’Mahony, Sean O’Brien and Jordi Murphy with Conor Murray and Ian Keatley filling the half-back slots. Robbie Henshaw will line out at inside-centre alongside Jared Payne who will fill the No.13 jersey.<\/p>\n
The back three sees Rob Kearney flanked by Tommy Bowe and Simon Zebo.<\/p>\n
Among the replacements are Sean Cronin, James Cronin, Martin Moore, Iain Henderson, Tommy O’Donnell, Isaac Boss, Ian Madigan and Felix Jones.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s opening fixture against Italy will kick-off in Rome at the Stadio Olimpico at 15:30 (14:30 Irish Time).<\/p>\n
IRELAND team to play Italy \u2013 Saturday 7th February, 2015<\/p>\n
15. Rob Kearney (UCD\/Leinster)
\n14. Tommy Bowe (Belfast Harlequins\/Ulster)
\n13. Jared Payne (Ulster)
\n12. Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers\/Connacht)
\n11. Simon Zebo (Cork Con\/Munster)
\n10. Ian Keatley (Young Munster\/Munster)
\n9. Conor Murray (Garryowen\/Munster)<\/p>\n
8. Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\n7. Sean O’Brien (UCD\/Leinster)
\n6. Peter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution\/Munster)
\n5. Paul O’Connell (Young Munster\/Munster) captain
\n4. Devin Toner (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\n3. Mike Ross (Clontarf\/Leinster)
\n2. Rory Best (Banbridge\/Ulster)
\n1. Jack McGrath (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster)<\/p>\n
Replacements
\n16. Sean Cronin (St. Mary’s College\/Leinster)
\n17. James Cronin (Dolphin\/Munster)
\n18. Martin Moore (Lansdowne\/Leinster)
\n19. Iain Henderson (Ballynahinch\/Ulster)
\n20. Tommy O’Donnell (UL Bohemians\/Munster)
\n21. Isaac Boss (Terenure\/Leinster)
\n22. Ian Madigan (Blackrock\/Leinster)
\n23. Felix Jones (Shannon\/Munster) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ireland name team to face Italy in Rome The Ireland coaching staff has named the team that will line out in its opening fixture of the 2015 RBS 6 Nations Championship. Paul O’Connell captain’s the side on his 97th cap for his country and is partnered in the second row by Devin Toner. The front-row […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[1826,1405,603,205,916,449],"class_list":["post-4694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","tag-captains","tag-country","tag-oconnell","tag-paul","tag-side","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4696,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions\/4696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}