{"id":457471,"date":"2026-03-04T18:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457471\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T18:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:01:09","slug":"ireland-team-announcement-text-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457471\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland team announcement – text updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wales name team for Dublin trippublished at 15:51 GMT<\/p>\n

15:51 GMT<\/p>\n

Ireland v Wales (Fri, 20:10 GMT)<\/p>\n

Chris Kirwan
BBC Sport Wales<\/p>\n

Wing Ellis Mee returns to the Wales starting line-up for Friday night’s match in Dublin.<\/p>\n

The Scarlets back will replace Gabriel Hamer-Webb at Aviva Stadium, while 21-year-old uncapped Bath centre Louie Hennessey could make his debut from the replacements bench.<\/p>\n

Mee, 22, is one of three starting changes from the 26-23 defeat<\/a> by Scotland with fly-half Dan Edwards and flanker James Botham coming in for the injured Sam Costelow and Taine Plumtree.<\/p>\n

There is one positional switch with Alex Mann moving from open-side flanker to blind-side to accommodate Botham.<\/p>\n

The Cardiff pair will pack down in the back row alongside in-form number eight Aaron Wainwright, who has been named in the side despite reports of a fitness concern.<\/p>\n

Montpellier lock Adam Beard and Leicester number eight Olly Cracknell are recalled to the bench, with Freddie Thomas and Blair Murray dropping out of the squad.<\/p>\n

Wales: Rees-Zammit; Mee, James, Hawkins, Adams; Edwards, T Williams; Carre, Lake (capt), Francis, D Jenkins, Carter, Mann, Botham, Wainwright.<\/p>\n

Replacements: Elias, Smith, Griffin, Beard, Cracknell, Hardy, J Evans, Hennessey.<\/p>\n

\"EllisImage source, Huw Evans Picture Agency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wales name team for Dublin trippublished at 15:51 GMT 15:51 GMT Ireland v Wales (Fri, 20:10 GMT) Chris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-457471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}