All eyes on Carbery as Ireland train their eyes on Fijian dangers
ELEVEN INTO TEN: Joey Carbery during the Ireland Rugby captain's run at Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Ireland bridged one five-year wait when facing South Africa last week. Another gets forded against Fiji today but little else connects the two. The Boks was all about the collective and, if the result remains the bottom line here, then the raft of individual auditions being held carries a relevance far beyond the norm.
The electric energy of last week won’t hold here either.
A 1pm kick-off means the smallest of windows for fans who like to whet their whistles and their appetites beforehand while a starting XV that shows nine changes to the version that saw off the Springboks is, to be blunt, a pale imitation of a fully locked and loaded Ireland outfit.
If some eyes are inevitably straining towards next week’s visit of Australia to Dublin – including its more socially suitable 8pm start - then there is a strong argument to be made that this one is the more important of the two remaining international fixtures this calendar year.
This is an opportunity for personal advancement, yes, but it is also a tie laced with danger. Players desperate to further their own cases in the approach to the World Cup will need to gel with relatively unfamiliar colleagues against an opponent that is talented and unpredictable and one with nothing to lose.
Vern Cotter caught the mood perfectly when he rolled a verbal grenade the hosts’ way late on Thursday night, the Fiji head coach suggesting that Ireland are “barely looking at us” and adding for good measure that this is “just a training session” for them before the Wallaby fixture. Clever.
Simon Easterby was having none of that. The Ireland assistant coach would remind us of the Pacific Islanders’ last visit to these shores, in 2017, when it was 20-apiece going into the last ten minutes and Ireland only won by three. Incidentally, only eight of Ireland’s current squad and three of Fiji’s featured then.
“We're showing as much respect to this Fijian side as we would to any team,” he said.
Fiji have made three personnel changes, and a few more positional, from the team that lost 28-12 to Scotland in Murrayfield last week, two of them enforced by injuries, as Cotter looks to meld the nation’s traditional strengths with a more solid structure.
Indiscipline and inconsistency remain stubborn habits. They conceded 18 penalties and earned three yellow cards against the Scots and an impressive eleven dominant tackles were offset by 25 that were missed. That was 18% of their total.
Fiji have yet to beat Ireland in four attempts but 2017 shouldn’t be the only warning light flashing in the home shed today. Ireland have struggled to get over both Georgia and Japan in Ballsbridge under Andy Farrell’s watch as well.
“This is a good game to see where we are at,” said the head coach. “We feel we have made strides in all sorts of different areas. There is a great opportunity for five or six of them to show their leadership strengths with the opportunities they have got. There are all sorts of different opportunities for lads, but the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it?”
Fringe players have been given opportunities against the Maoris, on an Emerging Ireland tour and against an All Black XV this year, but time is running out with just ten games to go before the World Cup in France, and Farrell made it clear this week that caps need to be earned after that disappointing ‘A’ game against the Kiwis at the RDS.
Only two who played that night, Jeremy Loughman and Nick Timoney, get to start here. Craig Casey, Jack Crowley, Max Deegan, Cian Prendergast and Tom O’Toole all had enough credit already built up to be named on the bench.
Boil the squad down and players fall into one of three distinct camps: those squad members looking to push into the XV more regularly, a spine of regulars that just needs to keep doing what they’re doing, and the band of those recently-promoted for whom this is a golden ticket at the big time.
Among the last of those is Loughman who debuts at loosehead and the pairing of Connacht forward Cian Prendergast and Munster out-half Crowley. Those two will likely earn first caps as well, if and when they are called from the bench.
If Ireland have a hierarchy of needs this afternoon then a top-drawer display by Joey Carbery, on what is only his 11th start as Ireland’s out-half, would be at the apex of the pyramid. A standout effort at full-back by Jimmy O’Brien wouldn’t go astray either.
Finlay Bealham’s second-half effort against the Boks seven days ago, when replacing today’s captain Tadhg Furlong at half-time, went a decent way to calming nerves over the depth at tighthead but Johnny Sexton and Hugo Keenan need to feel more heat as we go into 2023.
“It’s important that we keep building that depth within the group because there’s going to be guys falling over over the next 12 months,” said Easterby who has been on board across three different World Cup cycles now. That’s just the nature of the sport.
“We need to have as many players as we can that are fully invested and understanding of what we’re trying to do as a group, and the more players we can have on that same page, then the stronger and the more competitive we’re going to be as a group.”
J O’Brien; R Baloucoune, R Henshaw, S McCloskey, M Hansen; J Carbery, J Gibson-Park; J Loughman, R Herring, T Furlong; K Treadwell, T Beirne; C Doris, N Timoney, J Conan. D Sheehan, C Healy, T O’Toole, C Prendergast, M Deegan, C Casey, J Crowley, G Ringrose.
S Tuicuvu; J Wainiqolo, W Nayacalevu, K Ravouvou, V Habosi; T Tela, F Lomani; E Mawi, S Matavesi, M Saulo; I Nasilasila, R Leone Rotuisolia; A Tuisue, L Botia, V Mata M Dolokoto, L Natave, LR Atalifo, A Ratuniyarawa, J Dyer, S Kuruvoli, B Volavola, A Cocagi.
M Raynal (France).
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