Andy Farrell set to reveal 45 - Dongguan Sport Team Wear Group

PANEL: Ireland head coach Andy Farrell. File pic: PA

A penny for Andy Farrell's thoughts on Saturday as any number of Munster players, some of them rarely seen in green jerseys, made everyone sit up and take notice as the province claimed the BKT URC title in the Stormers’ back yard.

The Ireland coach is set to reveal a preliminary 45-man World Cup panel on Tuesday and it goes without saying that he and his coaching staff would have had the vast majority of the names pencilled in before the game unfolded in Cape Town.

This season just passed has, after all, been unprecedented in the number of players who have worn the Ireland jumper at senior level thanks to the eleven games at Test level and the fielding of other developmental teams of various stripes.

Twenty-seven players faced the Maoris last summer, another nearly new group travelled to South Africa with Emerging Ireland, and a combination of the two with some others again had a largely unsuccessful audition with Ireland ‘A’ against a Kiwi equivalent in November.

In all, Farrell and his brains trust have run the rule over 88 players across 16 games in this last calendar year - 41 of them having played at Test level - and assistant coach Simon Easterby explained the reasoning ahead of that Emerging Ireland tour.

"We want them to be as good as they could be and there will be players who surprise us, the public and supporters with what they do and maybe some of them just haven't had that exposure at the higher level yet. It's a win-win."

Some have had more opportunity than others. Cian Prendergast played for all four of those representative sides in the last 12 months. Jack Crowley, whose ascent has been of the nosebleed variety, turned out for three, including the senior side.

That the landscape has shifted dramatically in that timespan is most evident in the fortunes of Joey Carbery who travelled to New Zealand as back-up to Johnny Sexton but has since plummeted down the pecking order with club as well as country.

The Ulster contingent has suffered a steadier but no less costly slide in fortunes ahead of the tournament in France with players like James Hume, Mike Lowry and Nick Timoney fading from the picture as the season ground on.

Leinster, it goes without saying, will continue as the most fertile breeding ground.

How much Munster's end-of-season heroics alter management's thoughts will be revealed on Tuesday. Shane Daly was probably in the 45 anyway but the fit-again Keith Earls and Calvin Nash have done plenty to vault above the likes of Jordan Larmour and Jacob Stockdale in a crowded back three race.

Jean Kleyn hasn't played for Ireland since being such a debated inclusion at Devin Toner's expense for the last World Cup under Joe Schmidt, but the second row has been so much more active and visible than the highly-rated but young and untested Joe McCarthy.

No department is more crowded with contenders than the back row so what does that mean for the likes of Gavin Coombes, whose stock dipped with Ireland mid-season but has since rebounded, or Saturday's man of the match John Hodnett?

And will John Ryan's Super Rugby form be recognised?

Just some of the questions and the names involved as Farrell prepares his enlarged squad for a ten-week training bloc, three warm-up games – against Italy, England and Samoa – before shaving the numbers down again to 33.