The Irish squad for France 2023 underlines a subtle if significant makeover in personnel when compared with the one Andy Farrell inherited after the anti-climatic performance in Japan.
Four years on, there remains a core of experienced personnel, most notably in Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray and Keith Earls, who all will become four-time World Cup participants – and that figure would have been higher but for Cian Healy’s misfortune last weekend.
Even so, having 18 players making their World Cup debuts is relatively high, and the head coach admits that on balance it’s maybe more than he might have anticipated.
“I’m not surprised. If you’re talking four years ago then we probably didn’t know the total plan as in what we’ve been through and what we’re going through, because you have to roll with the punches in that regard, don’t you?
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“At the same time, I think the process has always been for the here and now and the medium term and the long term. You know, a lot [of other squads] tend to go from cycle to cycle and chop a few and carry on.
“I think the right way, for me anyway, is to grow and develop competition as we go and then when we get to something like this, watch and learn and let’s pick a card that’s most right for the team.”
Such an open-minded approach is reflected in the figures. Since the last World Cup, Farrell has handed debuts to 30 newly-capped players at Test level, compared with 40 in the previous four-year cycle. Of the 30 blooded by Farrell, 14 are in Ireland’s 33-man squad. That’s a pretty high return really, while it says much about the winds of change brought about by the Fabien Galthié era, and their deeper pool of talent in the Top 14, that 24 of the French squad will be playing in their first World Cup.
It was back in October 2021 when Farrell, along with Sexton, first started talking quite openly – and more so than any of his predecessors in the Irish job – about the November 2021 Autumn Series marking the countdown to the 2023 World Cup.
By that stage, eight of the 14 current squad members who have been blooded in this cycle had already made their debuts. Caelan Doris, then 21, and Ronan Kelleher, off the bench, did so in Farrell’s first game, the 2020 Six Nations opener against Scotland.
Hugo Keenan and Jamison Gibson-Park followed suit in the re-arranged game later that year against Italy, followed by James Lowe in Autumn Nations Cup.
Ryan Baird and Craig Casey made their debuts in the 2021 Six Nations third-round game behind closed doors in Rome, while Tom O’Toole is the only one of eight debutants against the USA in July 2021 who will be going to France 2023.
However, since the countdown truly began in Farrell’s view on the eve of the 2021 Autumn Series, the head coach and his assistants have been notably more selective. Of the eight players subsequently given Test debuts, all but two have made the cut for this World Cup, the exceptions being Michael Lowry and Cian Prendergast, who perhaps was closest of all in missing out.
Dan Sheehan made his Irish debut against Japan, and such has been his seamless transition to international rugby that he has played in 18 of Ireland’s last 22 Tests. Eyebrows were raised when Mack Hansen was drafted into the squad on the back of a handful of games for Connacht, but having been the sole debutant in the 2022 Six Nations, he has taken to Test rugby so assuredly that he has played in 16 of Ireland’s last 19 Tests.
Jimmy O’Brien broke into the team last November when demonstrating his invaluable versatility by playing in three different positions in three matches. Jeremy Loughman and Jack Crowley made their Test debuts a wek later against Fiji, while Joe McCarthy – the youngest in the squad at 22 years old – made his debut against Australia that same month.
Crowley and McCarthy were the only players involved in the Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa last October. The other four players appearing in their first World Cup are Rob Herring (a non-playing call-up in quarter-final week in Japan), Finlay Bealham, Ross Byrne and Stuart McCloskey.
All the while, Farrell has been embracing all manner of disruptions and unforeseen eventualities as welcome stress tests of his squad. This is partly why he was relatively pleased with last week’s win in Bayonne against Samoa, when his reconfigured side had to cope with a night-time kick-off in France, heavy rain, a hostile crowd, fired-up Pacific Ireland opponents and Wayne Barnes, all of which will apply for the round-two game against Tonga, except perhaps the weather.
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As a player at one World Cup and a coach at two more, he has no doubt that learning to cope with the unexpected and being stressed are critical to surviving.
“The key learnings are the scenarios that we’ve tried to put ourselves through in the last few years,” he says, drawing on his past experiences of World Cups, “because you hear me say constantly ‘best laid plans’ and all that”.
“It’s 100 per cent that at a World Cup. And the ones that get flustered with all that because they’re not ready for all different types of permutations are the ones that lose the plot.
“And the key to progressing in a competition like this is staying calm, keeping your feet under you and making sure that you just roll with the punches and be the best version of yourself no matter what happens and have a no excuse mentality.
“So, we’ve tried to put ourselves in those types of positions before and we know what’s coming.”
Farrell’s side go into the tournament on the back of winning 24 of their last 26 Tests, including an Irish record of 13 victories in a row. Like never before they are contenders, and go into the tournament at their lowest odds ever, 9/2, albeit as fourth favourites, which has never happened before and underlines the openness of this World Cup.
“Well, I think everyone loves to say that anyway,” observed Farrell. “I think when we get to the point I think everyone’s so excited and everyone wants it to be like that because there’s so many good teams that can compete with each other on any given day.
“And the pressures of the competition within itself, the history of all that, shows that it is going to be a wide open competition anyway, you know.
“So, one step at a time. Let’s see if we can build some momentum.”
