Irish Rugby | Squad Update With John Fogarty As McCarthy And Furlong Ruled Out

Ireland Scrum Coach John Fogarty says that Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham both trained well today and are in contention for selection but Joe McCarthy and Tadhg Furlong are ruled out of the Round 2 Guinness Men’s Six Nations trip to Scotland.

“They trained just now and it looks positive for both of them. They took part in the full session. The session has just ended so they’ll be looked at again and They’ll be in medical before tomorrow morning and so on, so it’s very positive.”

Looking ahead to the match against Scotland Fogarty said, “It’s a different challenge. We’re away from home so there’s a different mentality to going over there for us. There’s parts around our kick chase that we’ve identified as coaches and there’s bits and pieces across the game. We’re always trying to improve. We want to have a better performance. We’re searching for that better performance.

They’ve talked about this is a big game for them. This is a big game for us. This is a big game for us to go over, away from home. and put a performance together that we can be proud of.

It’s always an unbelievably tough game. It’s never an easy game. Regardless of what’s happened in the past. They’re very dangerous. They’ve got a world-class backline, haven’t they?

“They’re a tough side to play against. They’ve got loads of belief. You look at their group, they have a settled group of players, a very settled management.

“They have a lot of confidence in what they do. They have a lot of belief in what they do. There’s been an edge to the games that’s been built up. You can see that in some of the URC stuff.

“So there’s always a little edge to what happens over there as well, which is great. I mean, it’s exciting to be heading into this game now, you know, nothing else is on our mind but putting together a plan that we think will work and putting it on the field.”