“I had good chats with Andy [Farrell]. In fairness, he’s always honest, giving you things to work on and everything. He said it was a gut feeling about the balance of the backrow [and] that was the decision he made. In fairness, that’s what you want from coaches, you just want, like in anything in life, you just want them to be straight and honest with you, and Andy is always that.”
Those are the words of Josh van der Flier when reflecting on the Lions tour to Australia at being overlooked for a spot against the Wallabies despite lining out in five of the build-up matches to the Test series. Having played against France in the opening game of the Six Nations, he dropped out of the 23 for the victory over Italy but on Saturday is restored to the seven jersey at Twickenham.
While it might be an overstatement to describe it as a trend or a theme, Ireland head coach Farrell has challenged several senior players in an overt manner in team selection terms so far in this tournament. James Lowe responded to being dropped for the French match with an excellent display against Italy.
James Ryan enjoyed a great impact from the bench in Paris and then produced another high-calibre effort in the win over the Italians. Jamison Gibson-Park and Jack Crowley helped to dramatically alter the ebb and flow when introduced as replacements at the Aviva Stadium last weekend, so too Lions duo Tadhg Furlong and Tadhg Beirne.
Josh van der Flier and Assistant Coach Simon Easterby. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
The description “dropped/rested/rotated” is less important than the reaction of the players when faced with one of those scenarios. Farrell doesn’t offer full disclosure publicly as to his reasoning, skirting around the edges, but he has displayed an emotional intelligence in preparing teams for assignments in the past which as an endeavour have seemed forlorn from the outside looking in.
He hasn’t got everything right, both in November and at the Stade de France, but that’s partially attributable to the injury profile and loss of form here and there on an individual player basis. There are also some holes in the player succession planning that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency. That all goes into the melting pot of selection and performance.
Cormac Izuchukwu is unlucky to miss out this weekend. It is nothing he did wrong. Ciarán Frawley and Tommy O’Brien are recalled to the matchday 23 for specific rather than cosmetic purposes; otherwise, what’s the point? The needs of Sam Prendergast the person temporarily supersede those of the player. No one is immune to a dip.
Van der Flier is back too, the latest senior player to be asked to reassert primacy in a position. The 2022 World Player of the Year has been left out for club and country before, but has invariably responded in a positive vein. He won’t be thinking selfishly when he takes the pitch at Twickenham, that it’s about him proving a point. Instead he’ll focus his energy on the collective.
Why? Because he has lived the assertion that the requirement of the team comes first. Lowe understood, so did Ryan, Gibson-Park, Crowley, Furlong and Beirne. Egos are a heavy and distracting weight to carry around a pitch if a player’s outlook is subjective rather than objective.
Farrell is a man with a plan. Van der Flier has a role. The Leinster flanker knows that Nick Timoney has excelled off the bench in the first two matches of the tournament and offers a point of difference in the way that he plays the game. They can’t morph into one another.
There is always a danger in holding up the final half an hour of a match when the game breaks apart a little more as having the most noteworthy content for analysis. But what can be said of Ireland’s victory over Italy was that the bench rescued the win, and that there was better balance and fluency after some of the units were rejigged.
One of those was the backrow. England have selected a fast, athletic breakaway trio in Tom Curry, Ben Earl and Henry Pollock, all of whom can cause havoc at the breakdown. Beirne, Ireland’s best poacher by name and number, has been reassigned to Ireland’s backrow, freeing him up a little to do what he does best.
Italy hijacked too much of Ireland’s possession at the breakdown. One of van der Flier’s remits is to protect that ball. He’s done it brilliantly in the past. There are a few more things on the list too. He’s back for a reason, his challenge is to fulfil that remit.