{"id":272710,"date":"2026-01-30T22:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T22:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/272710\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T22:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T22:43:09","slug":"ruaidhri-oconnor-this-six-nations-campaign-has-become-andy-farrells-greatest-challenge-yet-as-ireland-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/272710\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor: This Six Nations campaign has become Andy Farrell\u2019s greatest challenge yet as Ireland boss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Head coach already faced a daunting list of things to fix before the disruption caused by further injuries and Bundee Aki\u2019s suspension\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Andy Farrell is bullish, but the odds are firmly against Ireland winning their third title in four years. Photo: Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/37b75e13-ec3a-47a5-a95e-0f6689d3aa8b.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Andy Farrell is bullish, but the odds are firmly against Ireland winning their third title in four years. Photo: Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Andy Farrell is facing his greatest coaching challenge in this Six Nations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A year ago, Farrell found himself experiencing the championship on the outside looking in, and he hated it. A lesser man would be wishing to be back in that position now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head coach already faced a daunting list of things to fix before the disruption caused by further injuries&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,106650,28454,61,60,4174,11287,11897,43,16766,31398],"class_list":["post-272710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-farrell","tag-british-irish-lions","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-rugby-football-union-irfu","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-ruaidhri-oconnor","tag-ulster-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272710","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=272710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}