FOR RUGBY DIEHARDS, the reawakening of Ireland’s second- and even third-tier senior international teams this year has been a thing of joy.
During the summer, it meant we got two non-capped midweek games for Ireland against the Māori All Blacks, with the likes of Ciarán Frawley impressing as the Irish side won the second of those clashes.
That was followed by a young, inexperienced Emerging Ireland squad heading to South Africa at the end of last month for three games. It was a divisive tour and caused some disruption for the provinces, but there was plenty to like as the tourists beat the Griquas, Pumas, and Cheetahs. Tom Ahern, Joe McCarthy, and Jack Crowley were among those who stood out.
And now we have the prospect of Ireland A playing the New Zealand All Blacks XV at the RDS next Friday, the night before Andy Farrell’s senior Ireland team face the Springboks a stone’s throw down the road at the Aviva Stadium.
Many players from Farrell’s senior squad will feature for Ireland A, while 12 additional players are due to come into camp next week to feature for that side too. Those 12 players are available to their provinces for this weekend’s URC action.
Farrell has been pushing hard for these additional international fixtures, keen as he is to further assess Irish rugby’s depth and bring more players up to speed on how Ireland want to play the game with the World Cup looming next year. It makes a lot of sense from his point of view.
But he was also determined to add these extra challenges in order to disrupt the status quo. He wants Irish players and coaches to be able to deal with the unexpected when it comes to a World Cup campaign. In that sense, he welcomes the prospect of preparing both Ireland and Ireland A for games next week.
“It’s what I craved to happen because I want to keep finding out about ourselves, who can deal with the pressure and who can’t, and I’m talking about management as much as the player group,” explains Farrell.
“I like things to be a little bit different. I think over the professional era there are too many of us who have got stuck in our ways of ‘this is how we always do it, we play week to week and our training week is always like this, this and this’.
“When you tweak things and people begin to panic, that’s rubbish in my eyes, there’s no excuse. There’s always something that happens within a World Cup, always something that’s going to try to rock the boat and these types of excuses are exactly that, excuses.
“I want us to be able to deal with things, the here and now, and just push on in this manner. Trying to come up with these types of things will allow us to become better in that regard.”
Next Friday, Farrell hopes to see several of the Ireland A players impressing enough to force his hand when it comes to selection for the Autumn Nations Series clash against Fiji the following weekend.
His hope is that some of those who featured for Emerging Ireland in South Africa step up for Ireland A and maybe on into the full Ireland side against Fiji, adding to his options when it comes to a massive 2023.
The All Blacks XV – New Zealand’s new second-tier national team – should provide a good test in Dublin, even if they have been affected by injuries in Ian Foster’s All Blacks set-up, meaning some of their original squad have been called up for the senior side’s trip to play Japan this weekend.
“I think it will be a big step up [from the Māori games] and then seeing who can earn the right to get selected for a Test match is the continuity of that piece,” said Farrell.
“There’s some lads that had a taste of it over in New Zealand and then some lads have continued with that, with the way that we play.
“We’re trying to grow their experience of how to be an international player with the short window that it was in South Africa on the Emerging Ireland tour. We’ll see how that transfers to Friday night because make no mistake about it – that will be one of the biggest games that those types of players who will take the field will have ever played so we’re excited to see them under that type of pressure.”
