{"id":267237,"date":"2025-11-06T20:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/267237\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T20:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:07:11","slug":"hes-a-lot-stronger-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/267237\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He\u2019s a lot stronger than you think’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ireland<\/a> boss Andy Farrell hailed the fight and resilience of Tom Farrell as he described the 32-year-old\u2019s imminent Test debut as a \u2018Roy of the Rovers\u2019 story.<\/p>\n

Munster<\/a> centre Farrell is poised to become the oldest back to win a maiden cap for Ireland in the professional era following his selection for Saturday\u2019s Dublin showdown with Japan.<\/p>\n

He was included in his country\u2019s 2019 Six Nations<\/a> squad when current head coach Farrell was an assistant to Joe Schmidt but failed to make an appearance, partly due to an injury setback.<\/p>\n

The former Ireland Under-20 player was subsequently overlooked for international duty amid fierce midfield competition from Garry Ringrose<\/a>, Robbie Henshaw<\/a>, Bundee Aki<\/a> and Stuart McCloskey.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mentioned it to the squad yesterday and it was fantastic for me to do so, to stand him up in front of his peers and tell them the story,\u201d said Andy Farrell, who has made eight changes to his starting XV following last weekend\u2019s 26-13 defeat by New Zealand<\/a> in Chicago.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ireland <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Japan <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s at the ripe old age of 32 but playing his best rugby and 100 per cent deserves a shot \u2013 not just for the form that he\u2019s shown over the last couple of seasons, but also how he\u2019s applied himself when he\u2019s come into camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word resilience doesn\u2019t probably do it justice. He\u2019s kept on fighting and fighting and fighting and he gets to make his dream come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis is a real \u2018Roy of the Rovers\u2019 story when you look at his journey in the game to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dublin-born Farrell, who came through Leinster\u2019s academy, began his career with Bedford Blues<\/a> in the English Championship before joining Connacht<\/a> in 2017 and then moving to Munster last year.<\/p>\n

With McCloskey sidelined by a groin injury sustained against the All Blacks<\/a> and Ringrose struggling with a tight hamstring, he will partner Henshaw against Eddie Jones\u2019 Brave Blossoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always someone that we\u2019ve seen as being a top-quality centre,\u201d continued Andy Farrell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose he\u2019s been pretty unfortunate in the sense that there\u2019s always been four centres who are pretty good that\u2019s been keeping him out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut his form has always been at the forefront of our mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a contact-type session on Saturday in Chicago, and that\u2019s when he\u2019s at his best.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a lot stronger than what you think, he breaks the line, he runs good lines and it\u2019s those type of sessions where you see his class come through.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say the difference in experience counts a lot because how he\u2019s come in this time round and hit the ground running has been completely different to how he would have handled it six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Captain Caelan Doris<\/a> will make his first start in six months after featuring as a replacement against New Zealand on his return following shoulder surgery.<\/p>\n

Ronan Kelleher, Tom Clarkson, Nick Timoney<\/a>, Craig Casey<\/a>, Henshaw and Jacob Stockdale<\/a> have also been recalled.<\/p>\n

Tadhg Beirne is retained in the second row after the red card he received three minutes into the defeat to the All Blacks was rescinded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland boss Andy Farrell hailed the fight and resilience of Tom Farrell as he described the 32-year-old\u2019s imminent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-267237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}