Mack Hansen omission a selection call, says Ireland assistant Mike Catt

Mack Hansen's omission from the Ireland squad for their World Cup opener was purely a selection issue and nothing to do with discipline, assistant coach Mike Catt said.

The 25-year-old Connacht winger started all of Ireland’s Six Nations games but was left out of the squad when Farrell yesterday named his match-day panel to take on Romania in Bordeaux (2.30pm).

Keith Earls, who turns 36 at the start of next month, starts on the wing.

At the same press conference the head coach indicated that some players had handled the distractions of a beachside hotel in Biarritz, where they were based before their last match against Samoa, better than others.

Asked if the Australian native’s omission was a disciplinary issue, Catt replied: "Not at all, no, no."

Hansen played 80 minutes in Ireland’s last two warm-up games, against England in a man of the match showing, and Samoa.

Earlier when asked why he wasn’t involved, the attack coach said: "Good question. It's a long tournament, first and foremost, and it’s making sure that we look after everybody. In the same breath, there’s some good competition in that area too.

"It’s nothing that Mack’s done wrong. It’s not that he’s performed badly at all, I think he’d done exceptionally well in these pre-season games, so like we say, it’s a long tournament and we need to keep people fresh too."

Meanwhile, James Ryan says the team are fit to deal with the expected heat and humidity in Stade de Bordeaux. The forecast predicts temperatures as high at 37C during the afternoon.

"We’ve had some good [heat] exposure throughout the summer in terms of, we had a training camp in Portugal, which was great for us.

"We did a huge block of physical work over there and we were over in Biarritz and trained hard there