Ireland v Scotland. Saturday 7th October. Stade DeFrance

Wouldn't surprise me if O'Brien and/or McCloskey get runs out - maybe McCloskey in for Aki and O'Brien on the bench.

AF is huge about landmarks and squad togetherness. He can easily keep the majority of the first team team intact while peppering in a few other players.

Nope. Samoa game was about getting gametime into players with an eye on getting ready for the weekend just gone and October 7th

Samoa was a RWC warm up game a month ago

The Samoa game is the reason we've put our strongest team out in every game and will continue to as long as we're in it. Samoa was a dress rehearsal for the Tonga game, our B side didn't deliver and Farrell had to change plans.

There is a fine balance. An 8 point defeat and we are on the plane home. It is do or die for Scotland so they are going to throw everything at us. If Russell has a good game, any result is possible so I expect we will put out a very strong team. Sheehan and Finlay should start along with Porter but If, by any chance, we have a good lead, Kilcoyne to come on early. Henderson and Beirne to start, Ryan to replace Beirne early if we have a lead.

Other than that, the only change to be Henshaw instead of Ringrose. Maybe Conan on the bench too.

The danger is if we do progress but pick up injuries along the way,the likes of Loughman, O'Toole, Casey, O'Brien will have no recent match practice if required to play. Also, you need to keep the fringe players happy. But, the priority has to be to make sure that we qualify for the quarter final

Not quite; for a 3-way tie the team with the best points difference tops the group and second place is decided by the head to head result between the other 2 teams.

So a loss 5-1 to Scotland and we all tie on 15 points, and South Africa have the best points difference then we’d be out for losing to Scotland in the head to head result.

It depends on what you call 'meaningful'. If either furlong or Bealham are injured, O'Toole would be playing for maybe 25 minutes. Similarly, Casey could be playing for 20 minutes. If Porter was injured, best to book flights home

We're on different pages here then.

In the knockouts, I don't see them pulling Furlong off for O'Toole until Furlong's tank is completely empty. Can't see that happening until maybe 10 min to go.

I'd go further with Casey and say I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't come on until around 5 min to go, if at all, in a tight match - like the Crowley treatment against SA. Again, with the caveat that unless the starting SH gets injured or is completely gassed or just playing poorly. If we're chasing the game or it looks in hand that could be a different story but in those scenarios I don't think a bit of extra game time now makes a difference in how he'd perform.