{"id":307800,"date":"2026-02-20T09:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307800\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T09:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:56:07","slug":"andy-farrell-draws-on-experienced-ireland-players-for-england-challenge-at-twickenham-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/307800\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell draws on experienced Ireland players for England challenge at Twickenham \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nature of a more congested Six Nations<\/a>, specifically in the first three rounds being run off on successive weekends, has no doubt contributed to Andy Farrell<\/a> shuffling his deck more than normal. But while he constantly referred to freshening up his team for Saturday\u2019s meeting with England<\/a> at Twickenham (kick-off 2.10pm), he clearly had earmarked this one for his more grizzled and gnarled players too.<\/p>\n

Having made a half-dozen changes for last week\u2019s win over Italy, the most discussed of Farrell\u2019s five changes to this starting XV will invariably be Jack Crowley<\/a>\u2019s recall at outhalf.<\/p>\n

But the other four see the return of a quartet of Lions who have a whopping 274 Irish caps between them in Jamison Gibson-Park (34 next Monday), Tadhg Furlong (33), Tadhg Beirne (34) and Josh van der Flier (32).<\/p>\n

It is surely no coincidence that Farrell has called upon their big-game mentality while also bringing back Finlay Bealham and omitting the inexperienced duo of Edwin Edogbo and Cormac Izuchukwu from the 23, as well as Sam Prendergast and Thomas Clarkson.<\/p>\n

Nine of this side were in the starting XV both in 2022 when Ireland<\/a> won 32-15 and also two years ago when England derailed hopes of back-to-back Slams with a last-ditch 23-22 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we go back into the dark ages sometimes, we go back further than two years sometimes,\u201d said Farrell when this observation was put to him. \u201cObviously last year was a pretty exciting game as well, like you would expect it to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah we\u2019re ready for anything that\u2019s going to be thrown at us because we expect England to have a reaction to that game,\u201d he added in reference to England\u2019s 31-20 loss to Scotland. \u201cWe know from what they\u2019ve been saying, emotionally they thought they didn\u2019t get it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was obviously talk at the beginning of the tournament that they want to take it to the last weekend when they\u2019re in France. The Grand Slam is gone but the competition\u2019s still on for them, and we\u2019d like to think for us as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it all adds up to what the Six Nations should be about. Different emotions week-to-week and here we are at the halfway stage and we\u2019ve got a cracker to look forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland have won 14 times at Twickenham since the first meeting there in 1910 and all were by one score until the 24-15 win which sealed the 2018 Grand Slam in a Baltic southwest London. Yet, staggeringly, whereas the bookies pretty much deemed the 2022 match a 50-50 encounter, Ireland were 12-point favourites and England were 4-1 to win when victorious two years ago. Now Ireland are back in their more traditional role of underdogs, regarded as better suiting the Irish psyche, as Farrell appreciates, but to his irritation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want that to be the case at all, but I suppose human nature tells you that that works for some people. But we want to be as good as we possibly can, and we want to be able to deal with being favourites or not really.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose what I\u2019m saying is that it should be irrelevant if we\u2019re in the right frame of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrell referenced the performances of James Ryan in the last two games after being dropped to the bench against France and of James Lowe when omitted altogether in Paris in clearly anticipating a response from his quartet of veterans.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s Tadhg Furlong is lifted in a scrum. Photograph: Billy Stickland\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Having suffered the indignity of being sent airborne by the Italian scrum, one would venture that Furlong will be as motivated as anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve heard me say many a time as far as players making the room feel right. That experience enables Tadhg to say it as it is and allows people to get over themselves and give the best version of themselves because he\u2019s in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s certainly portrayed that this week and you sense that he\u2019s up for a big game because he knows what\u2019s needed to be able to go to Twickenham and come out with a victory which is always going to be a hard task to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the outhalf debate dominates, in truth rarely has a change at 10 seemed so probable as the reinstatement of Crowley after his positive contribution to the win over Italy<\/a> in tandem with Gibson-Park last week.<\/p>\n

As eye-catching is that despite reverting to a 5-3 split, Prendergast misses out on the match day squad to Ciaran Frawley and was not even part of the travelling squad which flew to London on Thursday. Crowley has started only four of Ireland\u2019s last 15 games since effectively being displaced by Prendergast in November 2024.<\/p>\n

Frawley last played in the Six Nations in the corresponding game two years ago when a fifth-minute substitution for Calvin Nash, before being replaced in the 50th minute after suffering a head knock in the play that led to George Furbank scoring England\u2019s second try.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old Prendergast had been in the match day squad for 15 of Ireland\u2019s last 16 matches since making his debut against Argentina in November 2024, the one exception being when rested for the 106-7 win over Portugal last July. <\/p>\n

Farrell has spoken with Prendergast as to \u201chis journey\u201d and using all these experiences to push his career on.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at every walk of life or anyone who\u2019s successful, in business or sport, and there\u2019s always learnings there to be addressed and I suppose the most important thing as far as that\u2019s concerned is honesty, to make sure that we\u2019re able to address the right parts of the game and the conversations that I\u2019ve had with Sam this week gives me confidence that that is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The nature of a more congested Six Nations, specifically in the first three rounds being run off on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25747,59241,61,60,1449,43771,60320,58265,12918,15551,112,58217,69607],"class_list":{"0":"post-307800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andy-farrell","9":"tag-england-rugby","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-ireland-rugby","13":"tag-jack-crowley","14":"tag-jamison-gibson-park","15":"tag-josh-van-der-flier","16":"tag-sam-prendergast","17":"tag-six-nations","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-tadhg-beirne","20":"tag-tadhg-furlong"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307800","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=307800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}