Irish Eye on the World Cup Squad 1

Starting "pre" season, I will be attemtping to have a look at the probable world cup fight for places in each position after "every week"

For this week, here is a look at how Joe viewed his squad based on the summer tours and the 6 Nations roughly. Bold is my attempted guess on cutting it down to the 30 players he can take to England in 2015 were it tomorrow. While italics are not involved.

Now, this isn't what I'd choose as my 30, but what it appears to me how Joe is thinking. It also highlights the tough choices ahead, as most squads announced contain 35 players, while the World Cup squad only allows 30. This means a tough pick between a 4th centre or a 5th back three player, while also reducing the number of props and backrowers in the squad. It's also likely that there will only be two outhalves involved aswell.

	1st Choice	2nd Choice	3rd Choice	4th Choice	5th Choice	6th Choice
1	Cian Healy	Jack McGrath	Dave Kilcoyne	James Cronin
2	Rory Best	Sean Cronin	Richardt Strauss	Damien Varley	Rob Herring	Mike Sherry
3	Mike Ross	Martin Moore	Declan Fitzpatrick	Rodney Ah You	Stephen Archer
4	Devin Toner	Iain Henderson	Donnacha Ryan	Donncha O'Callaghan
5	Paul O'Connell	Dan Tuohy	Mike McCarthy
6	Peter O'Mahony	Rhys Ruddock	Robbie Diack	Kevin McLaughlin
7	Sean O'Brien	Chris Henry	Jordi Murphy	Tommy O'Donnell
8	Jamie Heaslip	Robin Copeland	Roger Wilson
9	Conor Murray	Eoin Reddan	Isaac Boss	Kieran Marmion	Paul Marshall
10	Jonathan Sexton	Paddy Jackson	Ian Madigan	Ian Keatley
11	Andrew Trimble	Fergus McFadden	Simon Zebo
12	Gordon D'Arcy	Luke Marshall	Stuart Olding	Noel Reid
13	Darren Cave	Robbie Henshaw	Jared Payne
14	Tommy Bowe	Dave Kearney	Keith Earls	Craig Gilroy
15	Rob Kearney	Felix Jones

I've also forgotten some players, mostly injured, so all corrections, comments and tips welcome.