Simon Easterby: 'It's not a perfect scenario ... but hopefully it can be win-win'

The Emerging Ireland squad will head on a three-game tour to South Africa next month.

DUE SOUTH: Emerging Ireland head coach Simon Easterby at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday. Pic: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Emerging Ireland head coach Simon Easterby is confident that the planned three-game tour to South Africa next month will prove to be of equal benefit to the four provinces and to the national ambitions going forward.

This is the second Emerging Ireland tour in just three seasons with the relatively last-minute nature of the 2022 trip causing consternation among the four club sides when coming as it did at such short notice and so soon into the new season.

Ulster boss Richie Murphy has already declared this latest iteration to be “disruptive”. Well he might be given his squad will be missing some key players, the impressive forward Cormac Izuchukwu among them.

The latest touring party comes together in Dublin next Wednesday and flies out to the southern hemisphere on the Saturday. They play their last game, against the Cheetahs, on October 9th which means the provinces will be without players for over three weeks.

Not ideal.

Easterby described the process of putting the squad together as one of ongoing conversations around individual players between the provinces, himself, Ireland head coach Andy Farrell and IRFU performance director David Humphries.

“We are trying not to compromise their preparation as much as we can,” he explained at the squad announcement at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. “We know that there is no ideal timeframe around this type of tour.” He made the point that six of the players who travelled to South Africa the last time have since gone on to earn senior caps with Ireland, and that the lines of communication have been far better this time having been announced as far back as June.

“I’m not saying it’s a perfect scenario at all but hopefully come the end of it both sides win and, most importantly, we get the players for a period and they get to understand what we are about as a set-up and as an environment and the challenges of international rugby etc.

“Hopefully it can be a win-win.” 

Easterby has also been announced officially as the interim senior coach for the Six Nations and next summer’s tour to Georgia and Romania while Farrell takes his sabbatical to lead the British and Irish Lions to Australia.

The 65-times capped Easterby was understandably thrilled with the honour and, with so many front-line Ireland players certain to travel Down Under with Farrell, there is scope for many of these Emerging Ireland players to quickly play themselves into the main ranks.

How quickly is another thing, but Easterby didn’t rule out the prospect that one or two could even earn their spurs in time to feature for Ireland this November when Farrell’s men face New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and Fiji.

“Yeah, for sure. That’s exactly what we want. We know there is a medium- to long-term outlook for this tour but certainly in the short-term we need to build depth in every position and there is no closed book.

“We need to make sure that we have the best players available to us in November and then the Six Nations. There is also an ‘A’ fixture in the Six Nations, there is a summer tour and a Lions tour. Who knows?

“Genuinely, it is a great challenge for these players.”

In other rugby news, Former Munster and Leinster out-half Joey Carbery will miss three to four weeks of action due to a hand injury he suffered playing for Bordeaux Begles on his debut against Lyon last Saturday. 

Carbery underwent surgery on the fracture on Monday, according to French publication Sud Ouest, and it concluded that the injury wasn't as serious as initially feared. He was withdrawn at half-time in the game against Lyon but impressed in the first-half of the Top 14 clash.

The New Zealand-born Irish international lost his place on Andy Farrell's Irish set up due to a string of injuries and lack of game time since 2018. This injury, though short, will see him miss Bordeaux's head-to-heads with Eoin Farrell's Racing 92 aswell as Toulouse, Perpignan and Bayonne.

More importantly for Carbery is that his likely return to action in November will coincide with Matthieu Jailbert's absence due to French international duty, giving the out-half another chance to impress in his preferred position for Bordeaux.