Farrell: Ireland are ready to roll with the punches

Over the course of the last two years, Ireland have often found themselves backed into a corner.

Some of that has been by design. The extra tour games they arranged last summer in New Zealand were a test of the squad's durability, while the Ireland A fixture against an All Blacks XV on the eve of their meeting with the Springboks in November was specifically to see how the coaches could manage when stretched to their limits.

Rugby being rugby, the game has presented plenty of obstacles, most of which the players have been able to navigate in the moment. Jack Crowley was thrown in at the deep end for his first start against Australia last winter, the Six Nations gave Ireland a slew of last-minute injuries to deal with, a Covid-19 outbreak threatened to ruin the tour of New Zealand, and the win away to Scotland saw Cian Healy packing down at hooker, with Josh van der Flier throwing into the lineout.

When it's been sink or swim, Ireland have consistently swam.

"The key learnings are the scenarios that we've tried to put ourselves through in the last few years," Andy Farrell said at last week's squad announcement.

The Ireland head coach has greeted every one of these inconveniences warmly, treating them as character-building exercises rather than reasons to fail, best met with a cool head and a dry pants.

The latest of those obstacles sees their most experienced player ruled out of the World Cup, with Healy's agonising calf injury seeing the 125-cap loosehead miss out on the tournament, replaced by Jeremy Loughman.

"You hear me constantly say 'best laid plans' and all that, it's 100% that at a World Cup.

"And the ones that get flustered with all that, because they're not ready for all different types of permutations, are the ones