Farrell: Scotland finale just the start of blockbuster year

The Ireland head coach has seven big matches at the helm before he takes temporary leave to coach the Lions.

BIG YEAR AHEAD: Ireland head coach Andy Farrell speaks to the press during an Ireland rugby media conference at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Sam Barnes, Sportsfile

Fri, 15 Mar, 2024 - 01:00

Simon Lewis

Andy Farrell whetted the appetite of Ireland supporters for the year of their rugby lives as he looked forward to a blockbuster summer and autumn, and a Six Nations title bid against Scotland tomorrow.

The Guinness Six Nations finale against the Triple Crown-chasing Scots at Aviva Stadium, when Ireland can seal back-to-back championship titles with a victory on home soil and perhaps without one given other results, is the first episode of the Ireland head coach’s final seven matches at the helm before he takes temporary leave at the end of the year to prepare to lead the British & Irish Lions to Australia and a series against Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies in the summer of 2025.

The last of those Ireland fixtures will be against the Australians, for whom Schmidt yesterday added former Munster forwards coach Laurie Fisher to his coaching team.

It is a contest confirmed last night as one of four Autumn Nations Series Test matches scheduled for Dublin this November and will serve as the IRFU’s 150th-anniversary challenge match.

A revenge mission against their World Cup quarter-final conquerors New Zealand kicks off the international window on a Friday night, November 8, as new All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson brings his tourists to the Aviva for a first meeting since that knockout clash in Paris last October. There are further clashes against Southern Hemisphere opposition with Argentina visiting seven days later and Fiji eight days after that before Farrell bids farewell for nine months against the Wallabies on November 30.

And all that after a two-Test summer series in South Africa against the world champion Springboks.

“This year doesn’t get any better for Irish Rugby,” Farrell said. “It doesn’t get any better. Look at what we’ve got coming up.

“We’ve got this on Saturday, we’ve got the world champions two games away from home, it doesn’t get any bigger than that. And then we’ve got the All Blacks first game in the autumn here to start the Autumn Series.

“We’ve got Argentina and Fiji and we’ve got Australia coming over because of the 150th, because of the anniversary. So I’m in charge of that. I’m picking that.”

Yet yesterday also marked Farrell’s final Six Nations team announcement until the 2026 championship as he selected an unchanged team and a reconfigured replacements bench to face the Scots from the one chosen ahead of last Saturday’s 23-22 Twickenham defeat by a rampant England.

First the bench, with Ireland reverting to a 5/3 split between forwards and backs a week on from his 6/2 selection backfiring when he lost both Calvin Nash and then the right wing’s replacement Ciarán Frawley, the only outside back cover, to head injuries. That spread Ireland too thin with both full-back Hugo Keenan and then scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park being moved out of position to Ireland’s detriment in a game not decided until Marcus Smith’s last kick of the game drop goal.

Frawley was deemed unavailable, his ability to play at 10, 12, 13 and 15 perhaps dictating Farrell’s decision to split his duties with Harry Byrne in as fly-half cover and Garry Ringrose at number 23 to look after the other backline positions.

Yet Nash retains his place, despite failing his initial Head Injury Assessment having been levelled by his attempted tackle of opposite number Tommy Freeman in the build-up to England’s opening try.

Farrell said he had placed his trust in Ireland’s medics and World Rugby’s return to play protocols to pass Nash fit to face the Scots.

“If you’re in the inner circle and you understand the process that these players have to go through now, you would thoroughly back that process,” the Ireland boss said.

“One, he has gone through it with flying colours and he never looked like failing for one second. And two, the process, I think is very sound.

“Accumulating a few days of getting to the next stage, passing them with flying colours, and having a conversation, an interview, a wellness-type appointment with an independent doctor today, and there have been no issues there. So, all is good to go.”

Having failed HIA1 at Twickenham on his removal, Nash passed HIA 2 after the game and then HIA 3 on the team’s return to Dublin as well as subsequent tests.

“He passed the three stages that he had to,” Farrell added. “He trained fully yesterday without doing contact within the session, but had to do contact after the session.

“Passed that with flying colours, no problem whatsoever. He had to see an independent doctor, if it’s a seven-day turnaround, you have to do that, and he passed that with flying colours as well.

“You’ve got to trust the process and what you have been told and what you’re seeing daily as well.

“I mean, we have got experts in that field, who have been through a lot in this regard over the last few years themselves, you know? So, you trust the experts on this.”

IRELAND: H Keenan (Leinster); C Nash (Munster), R Henshaw (Leinster), B Aki (Connacht), J Lowe (Leinster); J Crowley (Munster), J Gibson-Park (Leinster); A Porter, D Sheehan (Leinster), T Furlong (Leinster); J McCarthy (Leinster), T Beirne (Munster); P O’Mahony (Munster) - captain, J van der Flier (Leinster), C Doris (Leinster).

Replacements: R Kelleher (Leinster), C Healy (Leinster), F Bealham (Connacht), R Baird (Leinster), J Conan (Leinster), C Murray (Munster), H Byrne (Leinster), G Ringrose (Leinster).

SCOTLAND: B Kinghorn (Toulouse); K Steyn (Glasgow Warriors), H Jones (Glasgow Warriors), S McDowall (Glasgow Warriors), D van der Merwe (Edinburgh); F Russell (Bath) – co-captain, B White (Toulon); P Schoeman (Edinburgh), G Turner (Glasgow Warriors), Z Ferguson (Glasgow Warriors); G Gilchrist (Edinburgh), S Cummings (Glasgow Warriors); A Christie (Saracens), R Darge (Glasgow Warriors) – co-captain, J Dempsey (Glasgow Warriors).

Replacements: E Ashman (Edinburgh), R Sutherland (Oyonnax), E Millar-Mills (Northampton Saints), S Skinner (Edinburgh), M Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), G Horne (Glasgow Warriors), C Redpath (Bath Rugby), K Rowe (Glasgow Warriors).

Ireland’s 2024 Autumn Nations Series fixtures: