{"id":356660,"date":"2026-03-20T20:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356660\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:00:12","slug":"ruaidhri-oconnor-andy-farrells-depth-chart-key-areas-still-looking-a-little-light-as-ireland-build-towards-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/356660\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor \u2013 Andy Farrell\u2019s depth chart: key areas still looking a little light as Ireland build towards 2027"},"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\">There\u2019s a lack of consistency across the board but head coach will be comfortable with what he has as he hones in on Australia\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ireland head coach Andy Farrell (centre) with, clockwise from top left, Tom O'Toole, Robert Baloucoune, Caelan Doris, Edwin Edogbo, Bryn Ward, Craig Casey.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IS 2103 Depth Chart.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 head coach Andy Farrell (centre) with, clockwise from top left, Tom O&#8217;Toole, Robert Baloucoune, Caelan Doris, Edwin Edogbo, Bryn Ward, Craig Casey.<\/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)\">Squad depth is an obsession in rugby and perhaps it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise given how confrontational and dangerous the sport is.<\/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)\">Compared to other top nations like South Africa, France, England and New Zealand, Ireland is at a disadvantage when it comes to the number of top-end players and the head coach is always working from a small base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lack of consistency across the board but head coach will be comfortable with what he has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,28581,28454,61,60,11287,11897,43,16766,69607,31398],"class_list":["post-356660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-farrell","tag-caelan-doris","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-ruaidhri-oconnor","tag-tadhg-furlong","tag-ulster-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356660","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=356660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}