Andy Farrell insists Ireland are ready make amends following some frank conversations and \u201csoul-searching\u201d in the wake of their chastening Guinness Six Nations defeat to France.<\/p>\n
The head coach accused his players of lacking intent during a one-sided championship opener in Paris, which further fuelled talk of Ireland being a team in decline.<\/p>\n
Farrell has responded by making six personnel changes to his starting XV for Saturday\u2019s round-two clash with Italy in Dublin.<\/p>\n
Asked about the inquest into the 36-14 loss at Stade de France, Farrell replied: \u201cA lot of it will stay with us because a lot of it is private enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut as you can imagine, because of the good people we\u2019ve got in the environment, there was a lot of honesty and a bit of soul-searching for reasons why.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve addressed all that and got back on the horse, put the boots back on and had a couple of training sessions and got to the business end of the week now and we\u2019re ready to put a performance on that we should be proud of.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get back on the horse and put that right is at the forefront of everyone\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland won back-to-back Six Nations in 2023 and 2024 before surrendering the title to France last year.<\/p>\n
Their poor performance in the French capital prompted more concerns about the current state of the squad moving towards next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I\u2019m) very happy because nobody was holding back so there\u2019s a lot of honesty there, there\u2019s no excuses,\u201d replied Farrell when asked about this week\u2019s preparations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to get back to simplifying things down and understanding what it is that we\u2019re trying to stand for as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s how we bounce back and move on from that because these experiences are going to continue to happen down the track and I believe with the squad and the wider squad, we\u2019ve got those type of occasions will stand to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ulster pair Robert Baloucoune and Cormac Izuchukwu will make Six Nations debuts against the Azzurri.<\/p>\n
Right winger Baloucoune is set for his first international appearance since 2022, while Izuchukwu has been selected at blindside flanker after recovering from a toe injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cRob, the sheer pace that he\u2019s got excites everyone,\u201d said Farrell.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a bit stop-start for him. He just needs an opportunity like this to try and do it on the big stage again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Izzy, he\u2019s someone that we\u2019ve earmarked for quite some time now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought last week was a little bit of a step too far. But another nine days under the belt and he\u2019ll be ready to rip in against Italy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scrum-half Craig Casey, left winger James Lowe, lock James Ryan and number eight Jack Conan also come into the team.<\/p>\n
Munster second-row Edwin Edogbo is poised to win a first Test cap from the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s potential at this moment in time,\u201d Farrell said of 23-year-old Edogbo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis type of opportunity is going to be what he needs to kick on with his game, so we\u2019re excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell insists Ireland are ready make amends following some frank conversations and \u201csoul-searching\u201d in the wake of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-294873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294873","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=294873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}