In largely relying on the tried and trusted in the 36-man squad which Andy Farrell unveiled on Monday for the forthcoming 2021 Six Nations, the Ireland head coach will not have generated the wow factor those hankering for change would have hoped.
The 21-year-old Munster scrumhalf Craig Casey and the 22-year-old Ulster tighthead Tom O’Toole are the only uncapped players in the squad, and neither of them is first-choice for their province. But this, after all, is the Six Nations, which history, prize money and the IRFU demands Ireland put their best foot forward in.
Any squad which welcomes back players with the proven calibre of Tadhg Furlong, David Kilcoyne, Rhys Ruddock, Garry Ringrose and Jordan Larmour, should be stronger as a result. There are caveats though, with the prop department looking a tad thin, while a host of players come into this tournament with relatively little rugby of late under their belts.
Whereas the hookers, locks and backrowers are all retained from the squad for the Autumn Nations Cup, there has been a significant change amongst the props where Kilcoyne, Furlong and O’Toole have been called in, while Ed Byrne, John Ryan and Finlay Bealham account for three of the five players to miss out.
The others are Kieran Marmion and Jacob Stockdale, whose absence with a knee injury for an unspecified time makes the composition of the back three none the clearer really.
Frontrow
There are only two looseheads, one of whom (Kilcoyne) is relatively lacking in match fitness, and of the three tightheads one (Furlong) hasn’t played in almost a year and the other (O’Toole) is an uncapped 22-year-old, admittedly of real promise, who is second choice for his province and untested at this level.
Viewed in this light, it’s a surprise not to see Eric O’Sullivan named as a third loosehead after his promising debut off the bench last time out against Scotland following his late call-up. Whereas he has started eight games for Ulster this season, O’Toole has started just one.
In addition to Kilcoyne, who has played 61 minutes in two comeback matches off the bench since suffering a bad ankle injury in Munster’s first game back against Leinster last August, Rónan Kelleher played his first half hour’s rugby in five weeks last Saturday due to a quad injury.
Furlong, of course, hasn’t played since the defeat by England last February due to back, hamstring and calf issues. Iain Henderson has been out since the Autumn Nations Cup finale against Scotland seven weeks ago with a knee ligament injury. Bundee Aki was sidelined for four weeks with a knee injury before making his return off the bench in Connacht’s defeat by the Ospreys last Sunday.
Ringrose has played just two games since the first rearranged Six Nations game against Italy in October due to two broken jaws. James Lowe hasn’t played in nine weeks and has only just returned to training due to a groin injury. Andrew Conway hasn’t played in six weeks due to personal reasons while Jordan Larmour has just completed two games after being sidelined since early October with a shoulder injury.
That’s a hell of a lot of rustiness, although it seems likely that Furlong and Lowe will play for Leinster against the Scarlets this Saturday, and so it could also be argued that all of the above have returned, or are about to, in the nick of time. Certainly Furlong is a risk worth taking. Ireland don’t produce too many first-choice Test Lions, not least at tighthead.
Among the hard luck stories are, given the aforementioned thinness among the props, Ryan and Bealham, who appears to have at least partially paid for an ill-fitting switch to loosehead. But perhaps the composition of the quintet chosen is another indicator that Andrew Porter, though likely to start at tighthead against Wales, is again being considered as an option at loosehead as well.
Ryan Baird’s career appears to have hit something of a bump given he has not distinguished himself of late, reputedly not even in Leinster A’s defeat by their Ulster counterparts the weekend before last. As a result he did not even make the Leinster 23 against Munster. He will surely bounce back.
Hard luck stories
Gavin Coombes, recently elevated to Munster’s first-choice backrow, has his fan club too. Although Will Connors and Josh van der Flier haven’t been tearing up trees either of late, they are proper opensides in addition to the converted Peter O’Mahony, while the backrowers are well stocked with blindsides/number eights.
Luck McGrath and John Cooney, like Marmion, miss out to Casey despite having a bigger body of work but clearly the former’s service and kicking game weren’t deemed of a good enough standard to force his way in and for whatever reason (though not false rumours of a rift between player and head coach) Cooney’s face just doesn’t seem to fit.
Casey, like O’Toole, is more of an investment in the future. Whether or not his emergence, with that of Jamison Gibson-Park in the Irish set-up last autumn, has helped to re-energise Conor Murray, by all accounts he made a big impression when called into the HPC for a week in November. He’ll bring energy and enthusiasm aplenty again.
Jack Carty is arguably the unluckiest of all. A bit like Cooney, his face just doesn’t seem to fit. Perhaps, after his eye-catching return to form over the turn of the year and that virtuoso, two-try, 25-point man-of-the-match performance in Connacht’s win over Leinster, the failure to marshal their 15 v 13 endgame against Munster revived old doubts about his game management.
In the heel of the hunt, one senses that Stockdale apart, this is the squad Farrell and his assistants would have wanted all along.
The Ireland team to play Wales might read something like this: Keenan; Larmour, Ringrose, Henshaw, Earls; Sexton, Murray; Healy, Herring, Porter; Ryan, Beirne; Stander, O'Mahony, Doris. Replacements: Kelleher, Kilcoyne, Furlong, Henderson, van der Flier, Gibson-Park, Burns, Farrell.
Ireland Squad 2021 Six Nations
Backs (17)
Bundee Aki (Connacht), Billy Burns (Ulster), Ross Byrne (Leinster), Craig Casey (Munster), Andrew Conway (Munster), Shane Daly (Munster), Keith Earls (Munster), Chris Farrell (Munster), Jamison Gibson Park (Leinster), Robbie Henshaw (Leinster), Hugo Keenan (Leinster), Jordan Larmour (Leinster), James Lowe (Leinster), Stuart McCloskey (Ulster), Conor Murray (Munster), Garry Ringrose (Leinster), Jonathan Sexton (Leinster) - Captain.
Forwards (19)
Tadhg Beirne (Munster), Will Connors (Leinster), Caelan Doris (Leinster), Ultan Dillane (Connacht), Tadhg Furlong (Leinster), Cian Healy (Leinster), Dave Heffernan (Connacht), Iain Henderson (Ulster), Rob Herring (Ulster), Ronan Kelleher (Leinster), Dave Kilcoyne (Munster), Peter O’Mahony (Munster), Tom O’Toole (Ulster), Andrew Porter (Leinster), Quinn Roux (Connacht), Rhys Ruddock (Leinster), James Ryan (Leinster), CJ Stander (Munster), Josh van der Flier (Leinster).
Fixtures
Wales v IRELAND - Principality Stadium, Cardiff
Sunday, 7th February, 3pm Virgin/BBC
IRELAND v France - Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Sunday, 14th February, 3pm Virgin/ITV
Italy v IRELAND - Stadio Olimpico, Rome
Saturday, 27th February, 2.15pm Virgin/ITV
Scotland v IRELAND - BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh
Sunday, 14th March, 3pm Virgin/BBC
IRELAND v England - Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Saturday, 20th March, 4.45pm Virgin/ITV
*All Ireland games will be televised on Virgin in the Republic of Ireland and on ITV (v France, Italy and England) and BBC (v Wales and Scotland) in Northern Ireland.
