{"id":518688,"date":"2026-03-04T19:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/518688\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T19:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:09:08","slug":"andy-farrell-ireland-head-coach-expects-discussions-over-future-amid-saracens-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/518688\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell: Ireland head coach expects &#8216;discussions&#8217; over future amid Saracens links"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ireland head coach Andy Farrell says he expects to &#8220;sit down and have discussions&#8221; with the Irish Rugby Football Union over his future after being linked with a move to Saracens. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saracens last week released a statement to distance the club <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/cq57j5nj3ezo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">from &#8220;disrespectful&#8221; reports they had offered Farrell a coaching role<\/a> after the 2027 Rugby World Cup when his Ireland deal ends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The English Premiership side said &#8220;no offer has been made&#8221; after the Irish Independent reported that Farrell was approached with a deal worth more than \u00a31m a year to return to Sarries following next year&#8217;s tournament in Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mark McCall will step down as Saracens&#8217; director of rugby at the end of the season and Brendan Venter will return to the role.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While Farrell admitted he understood why he would be linked with a role at his former club, where his son Owen currently plays, he said it was &#8220;people putting two and two together and making five&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;You&#8217;d expect me to say I&#8217;m here to concentrate on the Six Nations and what will be, will be in the future,&#8221; Farrell said ahead of Ireland&#8217;s Six Nations game with Wales on Friday (20:10 GMT). <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I suppose it&#8217;s people putting two and two together and making five, with the connections, good friends with the owner, Owen&#8217;s there and all of that&#8230; So you can see why that has happened. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I suppose we&#8217;ll sit down and have discussions with the IRFU in the near future, that&#8217;s for sure.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Farrell, who played for Saracens as a player after switching from Rugby League, joined Ireland&#8217;s coaching team under Joe Schmidt and became head coach after the conclusion of the 2019 World Cup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 50-year-old guided Ireland to two Six Nations titles, including a Grand Slam in 2023, and took charge of the British and Irish Lions&#8217; series win over Australia in the summer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland head coach Andy Farrell says he expects to &#8220;sit down and have discussions&#8221; with the Irish Rugby&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-518688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518688","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=518688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}