ON THIS WEEK’S midweek episode of Rugby Weekly Extra, former Ireland and Melbourne Rebels performance analyst Eoin Toolan was tasked with picking an Ireland ‘A’ team to face their Portuguese equivalents in a soon-to-be-confirmed fixture in the spring.
Toolan’s remit was to select, on current form, a XV of players whom he didn’t believe would quite make a first-choice Six Nations matchday 23 as things stand — but who could force their way further into Andy Farrell’s line of thinking over the next couple of months.
At scrum-half in his personal XV, Toolan opted for Munster’s Craig Casey in the expectation that Jamison Gibson-Park and Conor Murray will remain Ireland’s first- and second-choice nines come February.
But it’s player who didn’t make Farrell’s final cut for the World Cup about whom Toolan has found himself most excited while watching the opening four rounds of the URC action, and the former Ireland analyst believes Connacht’s starting scrum-half may yet rip up the pecking order next spring.
“I really do like Caolin Blade,” said Toolan. “I think it’s really nip and tuck between him and Casey as that third-choice nine for Ireland.
“He’s got really good foot-speed, his reading of the game is excellent, he has that line-break ability. His service is decent. He needs to continually work on the kicking side of his game.
“But for me, he’s really exciting. He makes Connacht tick.
A lot of their good attacking play stems from him — and I know that might sound like an obvious thing to say about a nine given how much they touch the ball. But I mean that his threat with ball in hand is sitting down the interior of opposition defences and freeing up a little bit more space on the edge for the likes of [Diarmuid] Kilgallen, [John] Porch and the back-three players they have who are really devastating when they get a little bit of space.
“Blade is probably more in the mould of a Jamison Gibson-Park than Casey is currently.
“Casey has probably more of a rounded game at this point there’s very little between them and that’s not to say that the pecking order won’t change come Six Nations time.”
Toolan also suggested that the likes of Blade, Casey, and Ulster’s Nathan Doak may not find themselves vying for the same third-scrum-half berth but a more integral role, depending on Ireland’s development strategy for the next — whisper it — World Cup cycle.
“Age profile definitely has to come into consideration when you’re trying to build a depth chart,” Toolan added. “You definitely have one eye on a World Cup in four years team but obviously, there’s a lot of water to go under the bridge before then.
“Murray’s and Gibson-Park’s age profile probably suggests Australia might be a bridge too far and they’ve got to look at developing Casey and Blade and the other nines coming through.
“The pecking order may change with the view to integrating longer-term players.”
Blade himself is 29 but he was Toolan’s unequivocal answer when asked which Connacht player he had been most impressed by so far this season.
This was part of a conversation in which the Sydney-based analyst pored over the provinces’ first four rounds of URC action, discussing team and individual stats, trends, tactical changes from last season and areas of concern for the weeks ahead.
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