IT’S THE TOUR that bolted out of the blue, so Irish rugby fans’ apparent confusion over whether it’s a good thing or not is understandable.
Even if the pandemic made sports organisations get used to shifting their schedules very suddenly, the Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa later this month certainly wasn’t something that had been planned long in advance.
IRFU head honcho David Nucifora said yesterday that “this opportunity presented itself quite late” and it means an obvious level of disruption for the four Irish provinces. Exactly how much depends on who Ireland select to travel to South Africa.
The Cheetahs are hosting the second annual ‘Toyota Challenge’ in Bloemfontein from 30 September to 21 October and Emerging Ireland are one part of the picture. The US and Italy are also sending A teams over for a series of games against the Cheetahs, Pumas, and Griquas across five match days. Ireland’s three fixtures take place on 30 September, 5 and 9 October.
The Cheetahs have been determinedly searching for more matches since being jettisoned from what is now the URC back in 2020. And they’re finally cracking it with their inclusion in the European Challenge Cup this season, as well as the Toyota Challenge series.
Their primary sponsors, Toyota, have continued to offer lots of financial support in recent years and they’re pumping funds into this run of fixtures.
Indeed, Toyota have promised €15,000 in prize money for the winners of each of the Cheetahs’ four games. It’s understood that the travelling teams will have their on-the-ground costs in South Africa covered but travel isn’t covered. Nucifora said the IRFU is “grateful to Toyota and the team at Cheetahs Rugby for creating this opportunity.”
Initially, the Irish provincial A teams were being lined up to go to South Africa, but then the IRFU figured it was a chance to bring together a national team squad. Ireland’s sense is that they can get a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of a group of players viewed as having the potential to be part of Andy Farrell’s 33-man World Cup squad next year.
Credit is due for Farrell’s willingness to doing things differently in this World Cup cycle, including speaking about it internally and publicly from well in advance, rather than trying to pretend it’s not looming there in the background. It seems to loom a little less ominously for that openness.
How many from this Emerging Ireland tour will actually go to the World Cup? It remains to be seen who travels to South Africa – the 35-man squad won’t be named until the second half of September – but Ireland believe that every single one of these players will be better positioned to genuinely integrate into Farrell’s frontline plans.
Of course, Farrell is not actually leading this tour. As expected, he will take a back seat and his assistants will take on more responsibility, with Simon Easterby acting as head coach. As well as assessing young players, Farrell wants to keep developing the coaching side of the Irish set-up. The likes of Paul O’Connell will have even more of a voice with Farrell stepping out of the way.
Farrell could even remain in Ireland while the emerging players are abroad, the boss possibly attending provincial games and staying in touch with his front-liners. The vast majority of his first-choice Ireland internationals now look set to be available to the provinces when Emerging Ireland are away. That softens the blow of losing younger players to the tour, even if some provinces will still be affected more than others.
The Cheetahs, Pumas, and Griquas should provide decent enough competition for the touring squad. The hope is that they offer strong set-piece tests and plenty of physicality.
The Cheetahs have the best-known players but the Pumas and Griquas recently contested the final of the Currie Cup and shouldn’t be pushovers. That said, this short tour is not just about the three games.
The Irish coaches feel that this camp will allow them to accelerate the players’ development by placing them under pressure to quickly get to grips with game plans and train at the highest intensity. They can also provide players with detailed individual feedback on where they need to take their games.
It’s set to be a blend of the players who featured for Ireland in their two games against the Māori All Blacks back in July and a fresh crop of high-potential young players who have excelled for the Ireland U20s over the past three or four years.
Farrell and co. have sometimes found themselves frustrated with those young guns having to wait behind more established players in their provinces, so this tour will allow them to assess up close just how much potential some of them have.
For the rugby diehards, the tour will be interesting viewing. SuperSport in South Africa will be streaming the games and viewers in Ireland will be able to tune into live coverage.
Whether the tour makes any broader impact on the Irish sporting landscape is doubtful but it’s really not about that. The IRFU sees this short trip as potentially being a small step towards the World Cup.
The very best-case scenario would be three or four players doing enough to convince the coaching staff that they have to go to the big show. We won’t really know until next year in France whether it was worthwhile.
But what Ireland have done in the past hasn’t worked when it comes to World Cups, so it seems worth a pretty low-risk punt to try something different this time around.
