Democracy reigns in the Irish dressing room. It's been revealed that Rory Best was picked as Ireland captain, not by Joe Schmidt, but by secret ballot of the Ireland squad.
The other nominees for the post were Jamie Heaslip - the captain during the down year of 2013 - Johnny Sexton and Peter O'Mahony.
According to the Press Association, Best emerged as the 'unanimous choice' of the Ireland squad, an electoral performance not witnessed since Saddam Hussein was in his pomp. They referred to it later on as an 'overwhelming majority' that voted for the winner, implying that there was a minority who held out against Best.
Joe Schmidt said that all the coaches did was rubber-stamp the squad's decision.
In his homily endorsing the players' pick, Schmidt described Best as a 'gentleman farmer', a kind of rugby equivalent of John McGahren.
When the coaches got together, all we really did was endorse the feeling from the playing group. He is our most capped international currently and his performances for the team have been first-rate.
And as a gentleman farmer he's got lots of time on his hands to commit to the various duties that captaincy requires.
We picked some more of our favourite Ulster men to captain Ireland here.
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Read more: 6 Of Our Favourite Ulster Men To Captain Ireland
