Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of those home defeats by France and South Africa was how Ireland felt simply overpowered by both, in contact and – against the latter especially – at the scrum.<\/p>\n
The nature of those losses has only heightened concerns over the squad’s age-profile. <\/p>\n
Fifteen of the players called up by Farrell for November are the other side of 30-years-old, while a further four will be by the time of the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Munster forwards Edwin Edogbo and Brian Gleeson, as well as Ulster centre Jude Postlethwaite, are all uncapped and would offer both new blood and physicality come the 2026 Six Nations.<\/p>\n
Leinster props Paddy McCarthy and Tom Clarkson, and the fit-again Ulster lock Cormac Izuchukwu, already have international experience but greater exposure for the trio would also fit the profile for a campaign that feels a tipping point in the build-up to Australia 2027.<\/p>\n
Ireland are not prone to throwing the baby out with the bathwater, though.<\/p>\n
Will Farrell freshen up a largely settled matchday squad with such promising but untested players or continue to rely upon those possessing such credit in the bank with a coach who will mark a decade on the Irish ticket in 2026?<\/p>\n
How some of those experienced campaigners shift what has felt like a Lions hangover is an intriguing subplot.<\/p>\n
There is more to it, however, than simply personnel. <\/p>\n
Given the physical profile of their squad even through what has been a golden era across the past decade and a half, Ireland have become used to having to box clever to enjoy their historic successes.<\/p>\n
But, while lengthy phase-play was once their calling card, changing interpretations of the defensive breakdown have rendered that part of their game as less effective than before.<\/p>\n
Whoever Farrell selects, and whatever the average age of the squad moving forward, there is a sense that one of the keenest coaching minds in the game will be relied upon to tweak the gameplan too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps the most dispiriting aspect of those home defeats by France and South Africa was how Ireland felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-216355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}