Chicago.

Head coach Joe Schmidt is set to name his Ireland squad for next month’s Autumn internationals at some stage next week, and the Ireland boss has some big decisions to make.

We named our predicted 36-man squad yesterday, and with almost a full compliment of players currently available to Schmidt – some big names are likely to miss out.

But with that comes plenty of flexibility for the four Test matches. With Ireland set to take on Italy, Argentina, New Zealand and USA – two fixtures stick out straight away as an opportunity to look at some fringe players (Italy and USA).

The Italy game sees Ireland return to Soldier Field in Chicago, the site where they famously beat the All Blacks for the first (and only) time, and could be a huge opportunity for a number of players to stake a claim for New Zealand’s visit to Dublin.

Here’s an experimental team we reckon Schmidt could potentially go with, using players we named in our 36-man squad yesterday.

Potential Ireland team to face Italy.

15. Jordan Larmour
14. Andrew Conway
13. Will Addison
12. Bundee Aki
11. Darren Sweetnam
10. Joey Carbery
9. John Cooney

1. Dave Kilcoyne
2. Niall Scannell
3. Andrew Porter
4. Iain Henderson
5. Tadhg Beirne
6. Sean O’Brien
7. Josh van der Flier
8. Jack Conan