Thursday 24 May 2018 13:51, UK
Uncapped duo Tadhg Beirne and Ross Byrne have been named in Ireland's 32-man squad for their Test series with Australia.
Beirne has been rewarded for his fine form with the Scarlets, for whom he plays his final game in Saturday's Guinness PRO14 final before moving to Munster.
He earns a first call-up along with Leinster fly-half Byrne, who has impressed as understudy to Johnny Sexton.
Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt has opted against resting some of his Six Nations Grand-Slam winners in favour of building momentum ahead of next year's World Cup.
While some thought the Kiwi coach may have given Sexton and Conor Murray the summer off after they toured New Zealand with the British and Irish Lions last year, all available frontline players were chosen on Wednesday.
"This has probably been the most difficult selection process for the coaching group to date," said Schmidt.
"Over the past couple of months the national coaches have spent time in the provinces and been in communication with the provincial coaches who have done a super job in managing the players across the season."
Schmidt has included Ulster scrum-half John Cooney, who won his first cap during last summer's tour of Japan, while he will hope centres Robbie Henshaw and Bundee Aki can recover from injury in time.
Ireland are on a 12-game winning streak but have not beaten the Wallabies in Australia since 1979.
They play three Tests against Michael Cheika's team - in Brisbane on June 9, Melbourne on June 16 and Sydney on June 23 - all live on Sky Sports Action.
Ireland squad
Forwards: Tadhg Beirne, Rory Best (captain), Jack Conan, Sean Cronin, Tadhg Furlong, Cian Healy, Iain Henderson, Rob Herring, Dan Leavy, Jack McGrath, Jordi Murphy, Peter O'Mahony, Andrew Porter, Quinn Roux, James Ryan, John Ryan, CJ Stander, Devin Toner.
Backs: Bundee Aki, Ross Byrne, Joey Carbery, Andrew Conway, John Cooney, Keith Earls, Robbie Henshaw, Rob Kearney, Jordan Larmour, Kieran Marmion, Conor Murray, Garry Ringrose, Johnny Sexton, Jacob Stockdale.
