SOS call convinces Michael Bent of Ireland's World Cup credentials

It had been a fairly routine July evening for former Ireland and Leinster player Michael Bent last year. A day's farming had been ticked off at his Hawera home in New Zealand, supper was being made and weekend plans were being finalised.

Then Bent’s phone started ringing and on the other end was John Fogarty, the Irish scrum coach who was in the country for their tour series against the All Blacks.

Bent, who famously played for Ireland before even appearing for Leinster back in 2012, thought his brain was about to picked for any morsel of information on his home country ahead of the first test between the sides.

Instead, he hung up the phone, packed a suitcase and made his way to Auckland to hook up with Andy Farrell’s squad to help with their preparations for the match.

"They’d had a couple of injuries. They played the New Zealand Māori down in Hamilton," said the 37-year-old prop, speaking to RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland ahead of Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final between Ireland and the All Blacks.

"’Church’ [Cian Healy] rolled his ankle quite badly....they had a couple [of players] that got knocked out.

"There were a couple of guys sending me messages saying 'you better be ready for the call up’ and that just seemed like a fairly ridiculous idea at the time.

"There I was, six o’clock at night on the Friday before the test stuff in Auckland. I was sitting there giving my young fella a bit of porridge and then I got a call from ‘Fogs’, the scrum coach, and I just felt he was calling for a bit of a chat, he was in the country.

"I thought that’s what it was about but then he asked did I have my boots ready. I had to ask if he was serious or not and yeah, sure enough he was. An hour later I was on the plane up to Auckland and