ANY HOPE ANDY Farrell might have had that a trip to Thomond Park would lift his spirits last night quickly evaporated as England A took Ireland XV apart.
The Ireland head coach must have hoped to see a hefty group of players putting their hands up as soon-to-be senior internationals, but it was another grim evening for Irish rugby.
The back-to-back defeats for Ireland and Ireland XV will understandably lead to lots of discussion of why Irish rugby is in a low ebb.
Farrell probably won’t be spending too much time on that, though, as he focuses on turning Ireland’s Six Nations campaign around after a miserable first outing in Paris. What’s next for him is the visit of Italy to Dublin in a week.
The Italians take on Scotland today in Rome [KO 2.10pm, Virgin Media], so Farrell and his coaching staff will be analysing that before they welcome the Ireland squad back into camp on Sunday.
The players will have had a day-and-a-half to lick their wounds and spend time with family after a lengthy stint abroad in Portugal and Paris. Tomorrow, Farrell will hope that they come back into camp with positivity and far more intent than they showed at Stade de France until it was too late.
Winning their three home games against Italy, Wales, and Scotland always looked like the minimum expectation for Ireland in this year’s Six Nations. Their results in the past 18 months or so suggested that Ireland were going to struggle to win away to France or England, even before taking injuries into account.
Since winning the second Test in South Africa in dramatic fashion in July 2024, Farrell’s Ireland have had two convincing defeats to France, two disappointing losses to New Zealand, and a thumping at the hands of the Springboks in Dublin.
They have beaten Australia twice in that time, as well as winning at home against England, while clocking up wins against Italy, Scotland, and Wales on the road, securing them a Triple Crown last year.
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Farrell was at Thomond Park with his assistants. Dan Clohessy / INPHO
Dan Clohessy / INPHO / INPHO
That run of results seems as good an indicator as any of where Ireland are in the world rugby pecking order. They’re no longer in that top bracket where they can beat the very best, but they’ve been better than some of the rest of the chasing pack.
Now, Farrell just needs to make sure that they don’t slip further down the food chain and instead keep aiming up.
That means treating Italy with the utmost respect, which would have been the case anyway, given how Gonzalo Quesada’s side gave Ireland a scare in Rome last year. The Azzurri’s clash with Scotland today will tell us more but they beat Australia in November.
Like everyone else, they’ll sense a vulnerability in Ireland so Farrell needs to get his players into the right mental space for next weekend.
That clearly wasn’t the case for Paris on Thursday. The odds were against Ireland before kick-off, but the timid edge to their first-half showing was jarring. With so much on the line on opening night, it was surely worrying that Farrell felt his players lacked intent.
“It doesn’t worry me because I know the people that we’ve got, but it’s the reality of what happened,” said Farrell after the 36-14 defeat.
“I actually thought they showed up in the second half with a bit of intention. We could have been better as far as our execution of stuff, but at least we had the right intention.
“It’s too late or too easy to have that when it was so lacking in the first half.”
Farrell and Gary Keegan, Ireland’s performance coach, will surely have assessed why the Ireland team was so lacking in something that’s a prerequisite for playing Test rugby, especially against a team as good as this French one.
Farrell admitted that Ireland looked a little surprised at the sheer quality of les Bleus in the rain in Paris, and how they played.
“It was almost as though we were ready for them to play wet weather rugby and they wasn’t, you know?” said Farrell.
“You earn the right to offload and that’s because you’re winning collisions. The way that they were playing, we were allowing them to do that because of that.
“They earned the right, through the contact. It’s not as though they were throwing risky offloads or 50/50s or whatever. They’d earned the right to do that and the pace they’ve got to finish that off is there for everyone to see.”
Farrell and his coaching staff have plenty to get right this week if Ireland are to come up with a resounding response to the disappointment of Paris.
As ever, selection is a key part of the plan. He must decide whether to stick with some of his experienced but underperforming frontliners, or twist and go with some fresher faces.
“It’s obviously at the forefront of our mind, selection,” said Farrell.
“Sometimes, as you say, it’s giving people another chance. But we have to look at the in-depth reality of how it went and act accordingly to that.”
So while others will be opining on what the bigger picture of Irish rugby looks like, Farrell needs to get his players ready to deliver a better showing next Saturday, and then go and have a crack at England in Twickenham.
A couple of good weekends for Ireland would change the tune, but nothing will come easy.
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Grim nights for Irish rugby but Farrell has to rally his men after Paris
ANY HOPE ANDY Farrell might have had that a trip to Thomond Park would lift his spirits last night quickly evaporated as England A took Ireland XV apart.
The Ireland head coach must have hoped to see a hefty group of players putting their hands up as soon-to-be senior internationals, but it was another grim evening for Irish rugby.
The back-to-back defeats for Ireland and Ireland XV will understandably lead to lots of discussion of why Irish rugby is in a low ebb.
Farrell probably won’t be spending too much time on that, though, as he focuses on turning Ireland’s Six Nations campaign around after a miserable first outing in Paris. What’s next for him is the visit of Italy to Dublin in a week.
The Italians take on Scotland today in Rome [KO 2.10pm, Virgin Media], so Farrell and his coaching staff will be analysing that before they welcome the Ireland squad back into camp on Sunday.
The players will have had a day-and-a-half to lick their wounds and spend time with family after a lengthy stint abroad in Portugal and Paris. Tomorrow, Farrell will hope that they come back into camp with positivity and far more intent than they showed at Stade de France until it was too late.
Winning their three home games against Italy, Wales, and Scotland always looked like the minimum expectation for Ireland in this year’s Six Nations. Their results in the past 18 months or so suggested that Ireland were going to struggle to win away to France or England, even before taking injuries into account.
Since winning the second Test in South Africa in dramatic fashion in July 2024, Farrell’s Ireland have had two convincing defeats to France, two disappointing losses to New Zealand, and a thumping at the hands of the Springboks in Dublin.
They have beaten Australia twice in that time, as well as winning at home against England, while clocking up wins against Italy, Scotland, and Wales on the road, securing them a Triple Crown last year.
That run of results seems as good an indicator as any of where Ireland are in the world rugby pecking order. They’re no longer in that top bracket where they can beat the very best, but they’ve been better than some of the rest of the chasing pack.
Now, Farrell just needs to make sure that they don’t slip further down the food chain and instead keep aiming up.
That means treating Italy with the utmost respect, which would have been the case anyway, given how Gonzalo Quesada’s side gave Ireland a scare in Rome last year. The Azzurri’s clash with Scotland today will tell us more but they beat Australia in November.
Like everyone else, they’ll sense a vulnerability in Ireland so Farrell needs to get his players into the right mental space for next weekend.
That clearly wasn’t the case for Paris on Thursday. The odds were against Ireland before kick-off, but the timid edge to their first-half showing was jarring. With so much on the line on opening night, it was surely worrying that Farrell felt his players lacked intent.
“It doesn’t worry me because I know the people that we’ve got, but it’s the reality of what happened,” said Farrell after the 36-14 defeat.
“I actually thought they showed up in the second half with a bit of intention. We could have been better as far as our execution of stuff, but at least we had the right intention.
“It’s too late or too easy to have that when it was so lacking in the first half.”
Farrell and Gary Keegan, Ireland’s performance coach, will surely have assessed why the Ireland team was so lacking in something that’s a prerequisite for playing Test rugby, especially against a team as good as this French one.
Farrell admitted that Ireland looked a little surprised at the sheer quality of les Bleus in the rain in Paris, and how they played.
“It was almost as though we were ready for them to play wet weather rugby and they wasn’t, you know?” said Farrell.
“You earn the right to offload and that’s because you’re winning collisions. The way that they were playing, we were allowing them to do that because of that.
“They earned the right, through the contact. It’s not as though they were throwing risky offloads or 50/50s or whatever. They’d earned the right to do that and the pace they’ve got to finish that off is there for everyone to see.”
Farrell and his coaching staff have plenty to get right this week if Ireland are to come up with a resounding response to the disappointment of Paris.
As ever, selection is a key part of the plan. He must decide whether to stick with some of his experienced but underperforming frontliners, or twist and go with some fresher faces.
“It’s obviously at the forefront of our mind, selection,” said Farrell.
“Sometimes, as you say, it’s giving people another chance. But we have to look at the in-depth reality of how it went and act accordingly to that.”
So while others will be opining on what the bigger picture of Irish rugby looks like, Farrell needs to get his players ready to deliver a better showing next Saturday, and then go and have a crack at England in Twickenham.
A couple of good weekends for Ireland would change the tune, but nothing will come easy.
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