The 35-year-old was suspended for Ireland\u2019s opening three games after he was banned for verbally abusing match officials in January, while he wasn\u2019t selected for last week\u2019s win against Wales.<\/p>\n
And Farrell says the Connacht centre is bursting to get a taste of the 2026 championship.<\/p>\n
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“He’s in great form. He’s one of those players who makes the dressing room feel right and he’s certainly done that over the last two weeks,” the Ireland coach added.<\/p>\n
“When it comes to big games, there\u2019s a twinkle in some people\u2019s eyes, you just know he\u2019s going to turn up; Been there and done that as far as big weeks and preparation and all of that.<\/p>\n
“And on top of that, he\u2019s been pretty good for us coming off the bench as far as energy is concerned. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll bring more of that on Saturday.”<\/p>\n
Aki will be 37-years-old when the World Cup in Australia rolls around, but Farrell insists he has full faith in the two-time British and Irish Lion\u2019s ability to make it to that tournament in top condition.<\/p>\n
He said: “He never whinges about anything. He\u2019s not somebody who\u2019s minding his body at all.<\/p>\n
“For me, the definition of age is somebody slowing down, it\u2019s somebody who\u2019s minding their body, it\u2019s somebody who can\u2019t do what he used to do, someone who is doing more recovery, rehab, all that type of stuff, so something falls by the wayside on the rugby part that\u2019s been so important to them like extra skill work or extra fitness work.<\/p>\n
“If you look at Bundee [below] or we talked about Jamison [Gibson-Park] last week, as far as their attitude and the way they go about themselves around the place, they\u2019re getting stronger and stronger.”<\/p>\n
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Farrell played a straight bat when asked about comments from the Scottish camp that Ireland are “there for the taking”<\/a> on Saturday in his team\u2019s Triple Crown decider.<\/p>\n And he was equally unrevealing when asked about his own team\u2019s dominance of this fixture, and whether there is an extra incentive to keep that 11-game winning run against Scotland going before their World Cup meeting next year.<\/p>\n “Honestly, I understand the question but we don\u2019t see it like that,” he replied.<\/p>\n “As far as Scotland\u2019s concerned, there is genuine respect that we have every single year.<\/p>\n “We say it the whole time, they\u2019re a fantastic squad and fantastic team and given any type of room to be able to play the game that they want to play, they\u2019ll beat anyone in the world on their day, as they\u2019ve proved.<\/p>\n “So that\u2019s how we approach every single game and this one\u2019s no different.”<\/p>\n Chief among the Scottish threats is Finn Russell, who Farrell described as “a complete player”, having got to work with him up close and personal on last summer\u2019s British and Irish Lions tour.<\/p>\n “Getting to know him, first and foremost, he’s a great lad, cares about his rugby,” said Farrell.<\/p>\n “People think he’s laid back but he knows what he’s after. He understands how to run a team and you can see why he’s been so successful and why people rate him so highly.<\/p>\n “I’m sure he’ll be wanting to put that on the field on Saturday.”<\/p>\n Given the brutal start Ireland made to the championship with their 36-12 defeat to France in Paris, the fact that they\u2019ve made it to the final round with even a sliver of chance of winning the title is something Farrell (above) is taking pride in.<\/p>\n Asked to rate the first four rounds out of 10, the Englishman said he\u2019d put it around the “six-and-a-half or seven” mark, before saying he hopes a big weekend could take it up to nine”.<\/p>\n He said: “Certainly room to do better. We\u2019ve had one really good performance, but we know that in Test match rugby it all doesn\u2019t go your way, you\u2019ve got to find a way as well and all the best teams have got a track record of doing that.<\/p>\n “Three [wins] out of three, obviously getting over the disappointment of the one before that, but still room for improvement and putting ourselves in a position to see whether we can perform at our best when it really matters.<\/p>\n “I suppose that\u2019s a position that you want to test yourself and put yourself in.”<\/p>\n Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie<\/p>\n \n Follow a live blog on Ireland v Scotland in the Six Nations on Saturday from 2.10pm on the RT\u00c9 News app and on rte.ie\/sport. Listen to commentary on Saturday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1.<\/p>\n Watch Wales v Italy (4.40pm) and France v England (8.10pm) on RT\u00c92 and RT\u00c9 Player this Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell has made it clear that Bundee Aki and James Lowe are part of his plans for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-343956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343956","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=343956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"12](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/00240b9a-614.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n