{"id":279241,"date":"2026-02-03T22:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T22:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/279241\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T22:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T22:32:09","slug":"ruaidhri-oconnor-leading-men-must-rise-to-the-occasion-to-keep-ireland-afloat-against-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/279241\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor: Leading men must rise to the occasion to keep Ireland afloat against France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Stuart McCloskey will hope to get Ireland on front foot in Paris. Photo: Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/940b16a9-d6a9-40b3-adc3-07e414dff246.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)\">Stuart McCloskey will hope to get Ireland on front foot in Paris. 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)\">The eye is always drawn to the changes and new faces, but the key to an unlikely Irish victory in Paris on Thursday night lies in the familiar.<\/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 have a chance of overcoming the odds and making a statement about their team\u2019s place in the world, Andy Farrell needs his leading men to find their form from somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stuart McCloskey will hope to get Ireland on front foot in Paris. Photo: Sportsfile The eye is always&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,28581,128727,65851,61,60,43,16766,12918],"class_list":["post-279241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-farrell","tag-caelan-doris","tag-cian-prendergast","tag-dan-sheehan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-ruaidhri-oconnor","tag-sam-prendergast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279241","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=279241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}