{"id":717899,"date":"2026-06-05T23:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T23:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/717899\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T23:43:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T23:43:29","slug":"andy-farrell-easy-decision-to-sign-new-contract-says-ireland-head-coach-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/717899\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell: Easy decision to sign new contract, says Ireland head coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Farrell said signing a new Ireland contract was an easy decision after he penned a four-year extension to lead the team until 2031.<\/p>\n

The 51-year-old’s previous deal was due to expire after the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia, but his extension will take him up<\/a> until the end of the tournament in the United States four years later.<\/p>\n

Since succeeding Joe Schmidt in 2019, Farrell has led Ireland to two Six Nations titles, including the 2023 Grand Slam, and a historic Test series win over the All Blacks in New Zealand. <\/p>\n

“Yes, it was,” Farrell told IrishRugby TV when asked if it was an easy decision. <\/p>\n

“To be asked, it means a lot because it means a little bit of what you do is appreciated. But to get to this point, there’s so many people that have helped us get to this point.”<\/p>\n

Farrell had been linked with Saracens and England before committing his future to Ireland. <\/p>\n

Farrell’s side have Nations Championship fixtures in July and November before attempting to reclaim the Six Nations title next year. <\/p>\n

After that, Farrell hopes to lead Ireland past the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time having suffered an agonising last-eight exit at the hands of New Zealand in Paris three years ago. <\/p>\n

“If you look at what we’ve got coming ahead, a summer tour to the southern hemisphere [to face Australia, Japan and New Zealand in July],” he added. <\/p>\n

“There’s some of our lads who’ve been there, obviously, but there’ll be a lot of lads boarding that plane who won’t have had that experience.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of firsts that are constantly going to happen, the Six Nations and then into the World Cup. What a year, what an 18 months that’s going to be.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell said signing a new Ireland contract was an easy decision after he penned a four-year extension…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-717899","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\/717899","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=717899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}