{"id":275918,"date":"2026-02-01T21:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275918\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T21:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T21:05:12","slug":"tony-ward-shaky-form-and-an-injury-crisis-leaves-ireland-looking-vulnerable-ahead-of-french-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/275918\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Ward: Shaky form and an injury crisis leaves Ireland looking vulnerable ahead of French test"},"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\">It\u2019s very difficult to see beyond a home win in Paris on Thursday night\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ireland captain Caelan Doris (left) with head coach Andy Farrell during an Ireland squad training session in Quinto da Lago, Portugal. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0f16aade-2e3c-4686-bd04-a042df1e3c2e.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)\">Ireland captain Caelan Doris (left) with head coach Andy Farrell during an Ireland squad training session in Quinto da Lago, Portugal. Photo: Brendan Moran\/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)\">This year\u2019s big Six Nations kick-off takes place in in the Stade de France on Thursday night. The timing, we are told, is to avoid a clash with the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics which is in itself a little white lie.<\/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)\">To set the record straight, this year\u2019s Winter Olympics take place in Italy, not France, and actually start in two days\u2019 time on Wednesday February 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s very difficult to see beyond a home win in Paris on Thursday night Ireland captain Caelan Doris&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,61,60,43,50534],"class_list":["post-275918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-farrell","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-tony-ward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275918","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=275918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}