Donal Lenihan: Andy Farrell will be less than a phone call away from Ireland
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How quickly the focus changes. While the additional Test to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the IRFU not only offered the departing Andy Farrell the opportunity to expose the likes of Sam Prendergast and Gus McCarthy to the top layer of international rugby, it also helped replenish the depleted coffers of the IRFU after last week’s confirmation of a deficit of €18.3m for the year to July.
Everything comes at a cost, however, and, with the Champions Cup kicking off next weekend, Munster, Leinster, and Ulster — Connacht find themselves in the Challenge Cup this season — head straight into action not having seen their Irish contingent for over a month. Hardly ideal.
Before moving on, it’s prudent to reflect on Ireland and where we sit less than nine weeks out from the opening Six Nations game against England, where we will attempt to become the first team since Italy came on board in 2000 to win the expanded tournament three times in a row.
While the desire coming into November was for a clean sweep of victories, having the opening game against a battle-hardened New Zealand side straight out of a competitive Rugby Championship was always going to be challenging. The visiting All Blacks didn’t have to be at their best to win in Dublin.
It was imperative then for Ireland to win the remaining three autumn Tests, which they did, but the oscillating nature of the performances against Argentina, Fiji, and Australia has left more than a few questions surrounding the health of the team.
On the plus side, the elevation of four debutants in Prendergast, McCarthy, Cormac Izuchukwu, and Tom Clarkson has added to the depth chart while Jamie Osborne’s bench impact in midfield against New Zealand and Argentina, and from the outset against Fiji, despite having to leave the field before half-time, has brought him firmly into the conversation for a starting place against the English next time out.
With the increased competition in the air for those high, hanging aerial bombs as a consequence of the no-tolerance stance on retreating blockers, there’s a conversation to be had around shifting Hugo Keenan to the wing with Osborne being handed the No.15 shirt. That said, Mack Hansen has never let Ireland down and his Connacht form will be closely monitored over the next two months.
Farrell offered game time to 33 players, which wasn’t easy given the calibre of the opposition. While that marked a decent investment in the future, it’s also fair to say that the head man would have preferred to depart on his Lions sabbatical this week on the back of a more convincing set of performances.
Farrell has always seen the Test windows outside the Six Nations as an opportunity to not only increase squad depth but for adding layers to the way his team performs. When conducting his review of this campaign, however, he’ll be left frustrated with where the team finds itself.
He would certainly have hoped to hand over the reins to Simon Easterby in better shape. Though shifting his primary focus to the composition of the Lions playing, coaching, and management team over the next six months, I don’t believe his influence on the makeup of the Irish team that kicks off the championship against England will diminish to any significant degree.
As he said himself: “I’m only living down the road in Sandymount, I’m going nowhere.” More pointedly for me, when asked about his boss in an interview after Saturday’s game, Easterby intimated that “Faz goes away but he’ll still be connected to the team”.
While he won’t even be in the stadium for some of Ireland’s spring contests, Farrell might just schedule a sitdown with Easterby for a coffee in the days leading up to the selection of the Irish side. I just don’t see any way, for example, that Easterby makes the call on who starts at out-half between Prendergast and Jack Crowley without getting guidance from on high.
With just eight starts in Leinster colours, Farrell was not only trusting his gut with the call to start Prendergast, a player who’s clearly caught his imagination, against Fiji and the Wallabies but was perhaps using his final selection for a year to apply pressure on Leo Cullen to start Prendergast in Leinster’s big Champions Cup games between now and the Six Nations.
While making an impressive start to life as a fully fledged international, there’s no doubting Prendergast needs a lot more exposure to top-class opposition. Cullen’s team selection for their opening Champions Cup encounter, away to Pat Lam’s high-flying Bristol Bears on Sunday, will certainly be watched with even more interest than usual.
It’s become apparent that Easterby faces a serious challenge in making Ireland’s attack less predictable. Teams have come to terms with the multi-phase aspect of our game and more comfortable defending against it. The breakdown and lineout also feature high on the to-do list. That’s a lot for a diluted coaching ticket to address in the handful of sessions available between now and the start of the championship.
Elsewhere, the distraction of the Autumn Nations Series came at a good time for the Munster hierarchy, shifting the focus from Graham Rowntree’s hasty departure on his return from the mini URC tour to South Africa in October.
Since then Munster have also parted ways with their forwards coach Andi Kyriacou along with changes in the S&C department as part of a deep-dive review currently being undertaken. The competitive break came at a good time and all within the high performance unit in UL have had a period to reflect and recharge the batteries.
While the search for a new head coach is gathering momentum, the fact the vacancy has occurred midseason has only served to complicate matters. In the interim, assistant coaches Mike Prendergast and Denis Leamy have had their contracts extended for another two seasons.
Munster have fallen between a rock and a hard place on this one as, ideally, the new head coach should have the major say on the composition of his coaching unit. If it transpires that Prendergast was favoured by the appointments board for promotion to the role of head coach all along, then you can understand the contract extensions.
What Munster don’t need is what happened last time out when Rowntree was offered a new contract as assistant coach, having been interviewed for the head coach role vacated by Johann van Graan, but left hanging for months before receiving confirmation of his promotion. The optics of that were terrible.
Tuesday's announcement that New Zealander Chris Boyd has come on board as performance consultant for the next few months is an interesting development. While it’s not clear what the extent of his brief is, it appears he will have a hands-on coaching role.
Based on the impact he had at Northampton Saints as director of rugby between 2018 and 2022, this is a very interesting development. I’ve said all along that it’s imperative for Munster to explore all avenues, internally and externally, to get this key appointment right. On first viewing, involving Boyd in the process appears like a step in the right direction.
Munster haven’t been a real force in Europe for a long time with last season’s campaign proving massively underwhelming. That campaign kicked off in Thomond Park against a Bayonne side stranded at the bottom half of the Top 14 on their first ever Champions Cup appearance. Sensing Munster weren’t quite as impregnable as labelled in Thomond Park, Bayonne fought their way to a 17-17 draw.
After a sluggish start, Stade Francais are languishing in 12th position in the Top 14 with four wins from 11 outings. As a consequence, I suspect the Champions Cup won’t be top of their priority list right now. The composition of their team will tell us a lot. Unlike that opener against Bayonne last season, Munster need to be ready to exploit any apathy in the travelling ranks.