HUGO KEENAN IS the metronome of Andy Farrell’s Ireland team and one of the most obvious changes since the last World Cup.
Keenan wasn’t part of the Ireland set-up in Japan in 2019. He was instead with Leinster at that time, beginning to establish himself as the brilliant fullback that everyone in world rugby knows him as now.
He wasn’t involved in Farrell’s first campaign as Ireland boss for the 2020 Six Nations either but when rugby returned after the first Covid-19 lockdown, Keenan was in. Although he started four of his first six Ireland games on the wing, he soon nailed down the number 15 shirt.
As Ireland look towards the 2023 World Cup, Keenan is top of the list in terms of minutes of Test rugby played under Farrell.
Keenan has started 30 of Ireland’s 35 Tests since Farrell took charge, amassing 2,301 minutes out of a possible 2,800. It’s quite remarkable consistency and durability.
2019 was Rob Kearney’s swan song as Ireland’s fullback. It’s worth remembering that there were concerns at the time about Irish rugby producing a successor. The versatile Jordan Larmour was seen as next-in-line and he replaced Kearney in the heavy World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand.
Professional sport is consistently unpredictable, though, and Larmour is not part of Ireland’s wider World Cup training squad this summer.
While Farrell and co. aren’t interested in dwelling on what happened at previous World Cups, it is interesting for the rest of us to reflect on how things have changed for Ireland since that miserable 46-14 hammering at the hands of the All Blacks in Tokyo.
This is how Joe Schmidt’s Ireland lined up for that game:
Ireland 2019: Rob Kearney; Keith Earls, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, Jacob Stockdale; Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray; Cian Healy, Rory Best (captain), Tadhg Furlong; Iain Henderson, James Ryan; Peter O’Mahony, Josh van der Flier, CJ Stander.
Replacements: Niall Scannell, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Tadhg Beirne, Rhys Ruddock, Luke McGrath, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour.
To be fair, lots of it is familiar. And yet, plenty has changed.
If Ireland picked a World Cup quarter-final team right now, how many of the 2019 version would still be starting?
Garry Ringrose, Johnny Sexton, Tadhg Furlong, James Ryan, Peter O’Mahony, and Josh van der Flier would surely be in there. Robbie Henshaw could nudge ahead of Bundee Aki at number 12, but Tadhg Beirne would be most people’s pick ahead of Iain Henderson now.
The back three is one area of total change in terms of Ireland’s first-choice XV. Keenan is now a key man, while James Lowe and Mack Hansen have earned similar status.
Lowe had a challenging start in Test rugby but has become a real force in 20 starts since 2020, racking up 1,588 minutes, which puts him eighth on the list of players most used by Farrell.
Hansen only made his debut last year but already has 14 starts and 1,120 minutes under his belt. 2019 starting wings Keith Earls and Jacob Stockdale are in the wider Ireland squad this summer, with the former looking like a good bet to travel to France as the latter battles hard to do so too.
Conor Murray is still an important figure in the set-up, having made 14 starts under Farrell, but the emergence of Jamison Gibson-Park as one of the leading scrum-halves in Test rugby has been one of the most important changes for Ireland.
Gibson-Park has made 19 starts since his debut in 2020 and his skillset is perfectly suited to how Ireland want to play. Outside him, 38-year-old Sexton remains the heartbeat of the team and will be crucial to Irish World Cup hopes.
There has been a changing of the guard in Ireland’s front row under Farrell. Andrew Porter was the replacement tighthead prop in 2019 but his oft-mooted switch back to loosehead finally happened at Test level in autumn 2021.
Porter has become vital to Ireland since and he is fifth on the list of most-used players under Farrell, a remarkable achievement for a prop in an era when they’re usually replaced early in the second half of games.
Rory Best was the captain in 2019 but retired after that World Cup. Again, there had been major concerns about where Ireland would go next in the hooker position. Things have worked out beautifully.
Dan Sheehan is the current starting hooker and one of the best in the position in the world, while Rónan Kelleher would likely be viewed in that bracket but for a string of frustrating injuries.
Still, it’s worth underlining how good Rob Herring has been for Ireland under Farrell, making more starts and playing more minutes than either Sheehan or Kelleher. If everyone was fit and Ireland had that quarter-final tomorrow, Sheehan and Kelleher would be expected to be at number two and number 16, but Herring is a class act.
James Ryan remains a huge influence for Ireland four years on from the last quarter-final and he is second only to Keenan in terms of minutes played under Farrell, having also made 30 starts.
In 2019, Henderson was the other starting second row, with Beirne replacing him off the bench. Both have been involved under Farrell whenever possible, but Beirne’s importance to Ireland has gone to a completely new level in this cycle. Indeed, the Munster man is sixth on the list of most minutes played, which includes three starts at blindside flanker. Pick the team now and it’s surely impossible to leave Beirne out.
O’Mahony and van der Flier would also be in that first-choice XV following their superb performances last season. Van der Flier is the reigning World Rugby player of the year and lies third on the list of Farrell’s most-used players. His status as Ireland’s number seven is undisputed.
O’Mahony has also been a consistent force for Farrell and is in the top 10 for most minutes played.
Another of the major changes for Ireland has been the introduction of Caelan Doris. He was the first new cap in Farrell’s maiden game in charge back in 2020, with hooker Kelleher coming off the bench that day against Scotland.
Doris hasn’t been out of the first-choice team since whenever available, amassing 27 starts for a total of 1,919 minutes for fourth place on the overall list. Doris has played at blindside flanker a fair bit when either CJ Stander [now retired] or Jack Conan have been in the team, but he’s at his most impactful from number eight.
As for the Irish bench, it will have a very different look if they reach the quarter-finals this year compared to 2019.
Niall Scannell, Rhys Ruddock, Luke McGrath, and Joey Carbery are not involved in the wider training squad this summer. Scannell and McGrath haven’t won Test caps under Farrell, while Ruddock only won one in the 2021 Six Nations.
Carbery has made six Test starts and played a whopping 1,030 minutes in the Farrell era, but he fell out of the selection picture last season as Ross Byrne and Jack Crowley have backed Sexton up.
On paper, Ireland’s possible first-choice matchday 23 looks stronger now than it did in 2019, while Farrell’s men play a different style of rugby, but it remains to be seen how things work out in France.
Most Test minutes under Andy Farrell:
- 2,301 Hugo Keenan [30 starts]
- 2,138 James Ryan [30 starts]
- 1,944 Josh van der Flier [26 starts]
- 1,919 Caelan Doris [27 starts]
- 1,891 Andrew Porter [24 starts]
- 1,665 Tadhg Beirne [23 starts]
- 1,655 Johnny Sexton [24 starts]
- 1,588 James Lowe [20 starts]
- 1,585 Garry Ringrose [21 starts]
- 1,566 Peter O’Mahony [21 starts]
