Andy Farrell: Let’s take Six Nations to the last week

Andy Farrell: Accepts France and England set the standard in the Six Nations.

The goals remain the same for Andy Farrell ahead of his second Guinness Six Nations campaign as Ireland head coach, and so do the teams to chase.

His debut championship on succeeding Joe Schmidt saw Ireland in with a chance of the title heading into the final round, played in Paris on October 31 thanks to the Covid-19 lockdown. It ended, though, with defeat and third place behind France and eventual champions England.

Yet if Ireland are in a similar position again on the last day of the 2021 Six Nations, when England are due to visit Dublin on March 20 then that will be at least a part of Farrell’s mission accomplished.

Speaking yesterday at the annual championship media launch, conducted online for the first time, Farrell was asked what success would look like.

“Same as last year,” the Ireland boss replied, “we want to be in the last week with something to play for, definitely. The bigger picture stuff is for us to get back up to the standard that we aspire to be at.

“That standard, at the minute, is being hit by a couple of teams and rightly so. You talk about France and England being favourites, we’ve got to try and earn the right to get back in that bracket.”

Farrell said: “It’s a great squad. We’re really pleased with it... the Six Nations is a war of attrition and there are all sorts of things that can happen over the next eight weeks. Hopefully we stay fit and healthy and we all keep pushing forward together.”

Ireland went into camp last night and will today begin preparations for their opening fixture against Wales in Cardiff a week on Sunday. The head coach wants his 36-man squad to hit the ground running at the IRFU’s High Performance Centre in Abbotstown, West Dublin, with “performing in the big games under pressure” top of his agenda and, he said, “something we’ll be addressing straight from the word ‘go’.”

Yet there are a number of injury issues within that playing group that means selection remains far from clear cut just 12 days out from the first whistle.

Captain Johnny Sexton (hamstring), senior lock Iain Henderson (knee), tighthead prop Tadhg Furlong (calf), and wing James Lowe (groin) are the chief concerns with full-back Jacob Stockdale already ruled out of the opening round due to bone bruising on a knee.

None of the walking wounded are considered serious doubts with Henderson, Lowe, and Furlong recovered but still to prove their readiness for Test rugby having not played in weeks, in the latter’s case since last February 23 against England.

“All are looking very positive at this moment in time. We expect them all to be firing on all cylinders by the end of the week. Tadhg goes into the weekend [set to play for Leinster at Scarlets on Saturday] hopefully getting some game time there and come Sunday, we expect all of the squad to be back together, fit and healthy for what will hopefully be an uninterrupted week leading into Wales.

“Obviously Tadhg is going to take a little bit of time to get his feet back under the table so we’re trying to leave it open enough to mix things up a little bit along the way.”