“Was it you?”

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has to answer more nonsense questions about Mack Hansen today following his team announcement for Saturday’s Rugby World Cup clash against Tonga in Nantes.

Hansen starts this weekend but was left out of the original squad to play Romania last week before being called up as a late replacement for Robbie Henshaw.

His initial omission led to unfounded reports that Hansen was dropped over a disciplinary issue after comments Farrell made about certain players not carrying themselves as expected during their warm weather camp in Portugal before the World Cup.

When the topic was raised again, Farrell had enough with one particular journalist…

“Was it you? Where the hell did that come from?” Farrell said.

“Left out of the 23? No. Anyway, carry on… we wanted to give someone else a game, simple as that.”

Hansen himself was then up for some media duty shortly afterward alongside Peter O’Mahony – and it was the Munster captain who stood up this time following more questions put to Hansen.

“Did Andy not just answer a question about this a second ago?” O’Mahony said.

“According to you he’s been nothing but trouble. He’s been a breath of fresh air. An incredible character, good person. We talk about it a lot, the squad that we have and how important that is to fit in and straight away we knew he was a top man.

“A character but above it all he’s an incredible athlete and one of the world’s best wingers at the moment, which is a great addition to add to the squad. But as I said, the overriding factor is that he’s a good person and he’s seamlessly fitted into our squad like everyone else has. He’s been great craic and you need characters like that.

“The beauty of the game of rugby is the different characters you get and we’d be lost without guys like this. Tours like this are made for being incredibly serious, and obviously our jobs and everything that goes with it, but the craic that fellas like this bring make it a great place to be.”