WITH SIMON ZEBO’S international future a long way up in the air, Ireland could easily look to fresher face with plenty of x-factor to bring to the back three this November.
Jacob Stockdale made his Ireland debut on the summer tour of Japan and the USA and has continued his excellent form into this season, scoring five tries in six appearances for his province.
With many clamouring for the former Wallace High student to be named in Thursday’s squad announcement, his captain at both provincial and national level agrees it would be difficult to ignore Stockdale’s incredible year.
“You cannot deny the form that he has been in,” says Rory Best, who points out that the 21-year-old has already displayed traits of the highest calibre.
“The big thing for Jacob has been to do one really good season, go on a summer tour and people know what you’re about to continue that form and to work hard in that you keep improving. Ultimately that is the difference between a top international player and guys who come in a handful of times and are in and out of squads.
The top players are always striving to be better, they’re the ones you see out doing extras at the end. We have seen a lot of that with Jacob and the way he turned up at the start of pre-season, the way he was during pre-season, he was looked in pretty good shape and it was no surprise to me the way he started the season in an Ulster shirt.
“I’m sure there will be intricacies in his game that Joe will not be happy with, and that he’ll want to improve on, but that’s the next step for him as well, just improve on anything. But you cannot deny the form he’s in.”
Having made his return to rugby action in Sunday’s defeat in La Rochelle, it seems highly likely that Best will be named in the Ireland squad for next month’s international series and will once again captain the side. With games against the Springboks, Fiji and Argentina coming up, Best believes it’s a chance for Ireland to prove themselves after a difficult Six Nations campaign.
“It’s an opportunity for the Irish team to make a bit of a statement to say where we are and push on and get the Championship back. These are three games that we have to perform really, really well in,” the hooker states.
“If you do that, we can win all three. That’s got to be after two years of playing well, and not playing well and making a bit of history along the way, but probably not with the consistency we had over the last two years.
“If we could just get back to that, it’ll be three really tough Tests of our squad and to see where we are and to get that level of consistency.”
Consistency of selection would help Ireland towards that, but Zebo’s forthcoming move away from Munster has cast a doubt over whether his involvement as Ireland plan towards the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
For Best, an Ireland side without Zebo would miss his on-field talent, but also the off-field personality he brings to Carton House.
“I think Simon is a great character, and he’ll do what is right for him,” said Best, no stranger to being courted by French teams having at one stage been heavily linked with Biarritz.
“We don’t have a massive pool of players to pick from. It isn’t England where you can have a hard and fast rule and say ‘well we have another three players of Simon’s ability to pick from,’” was Best’s verdict.
“It is really disappointing for someone like him to probably rule himself out, so from that side of things, yes. It is an opportunity for somebody coming behind and very quickly you are going to have to find someone of Simon’s ability to stepping up and play 11, 14, and 15, which there’s not too many people about with the skill level he can do.
“From an Irish point view, it is a big loss, as much as anything his ability, characters around the place are hard to come by. True characters are probably becoming fewer and fewer as the level of intensity, and level of training expected becomes younger, younger and younger.
“To get these sort of guys is hard to find, but I’m sure we’ll unearth somebody, it’s like everything, we will have to fill what will be a bit of a void in the backline, more so for Munster. But from an Irish point of view it will be a loss, it will be sad to be potentially in an Ireland squad without him.”
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