So now we know the identities of the 30 players entrusted with Ireland’s World Cup bid.

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They include players whose places were never in any doubt —like Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Rory Best, Tommy Bowe and Jamie Heaslip — plus a totally unexpected rookie in pivot Conor Murray.

Whilst not, for one moment, bemoaning the axing of Tomas O’Leary whose recent form has been wretched, I admit to being surprised at Declan Kidney’s boldness in swinging the selectorial hatchet on the more established of the Munster scrum-halves. Peter Stringer went first with O’Leary following on Sunday.

There is vast experience with the squad boasting Grand Slam and Heineken Cup winners. In addition to Murray, Fergus McFadden is another flegling whose Test match service amounts to four caps — three of them as a replacement — a total of 103 minutes.

Twenty-two year old Murray’s time on the international stage at senior level translates as 20 minutes — his last-quarter outing against France in Bordeaux on August 13. A huge call — and a very brave one on Kidney’s part.

If it comes off, he will be lauded for his vision and courage. If it fails he stands to be lambasted for having got it wrong. Even now one can envisage the verbal snipers taking up their metaphoric positions on the rooftops.

Right up until yesterday when, finally, he named his 30 for New Zealand, Kidney kept his thoughts to himself. It was not even known what the breakdown might be. Would he opt for 17 forwards and 13 backs? Or a 15 plus 15 split? Possibly, even, a 16-14 division of labour?

He has gone for the latter, the forwards’ breakdown being four props, three hookers, three out and out locks, five fully paid-up members of the back row union and Donnacha Ryan who can play in either of the last two sections of the pack.

The backs feature three scrum-halves, two fly-halves, two specialist full-backs, out-and-out centres in captain Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy plus five others who, between them, can play at 15, on the wings or in midfield, and Paddy Wallace whose dual role covers centre and number 10.

Saturday against France even saw Jonathan Sexton switch to inside centre when Ronan O’Gara came off the bench so, whatever else, Kidney has boxed cleverly in maximising his options.

There were one or two sharp intakes of breath from the assembled media hordes as the coach, with captain O’Driscoll by his side, announced the 30 in the opulence of Carton House’s Morrison Suite.

“With the quality of people that are there at the moment the difficulty in picking the squad is not who to pick — because I’m delighted with the boys who are picked — but in who not to pick,” said Kidney.

“For everybody it was the exact same. I said we would take a look at what we knew people could do, we would take a look at how last season finished, how the guys went through pre-season, how guys would go through the (warm-up) games and then we would add it all up and see who would be the best ones for us.

“There were some extraordinarily difficult decisions.”

Chief amongst those was the call to exclude battle-hardened O’Leary and include largely untested Murray.

Kidney’s take on the novice’s call-up was: “Obviously what he can do is a little bit unknown. He’s had a very good pre-season, he’s had limited enough opportunity on the pitch but he’s taken it with both hands and so that’s how we ended up with that decision.”