{"id":530199,"date":"2026-07-02T23:33:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T23:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/530199\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T23:33:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T23:33:06","slug":"andy-farrell-says-james-lowe-will-be-sorely-missed-as-ireland-gear-up-for-australia-clash-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/530199\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell says James Lowe will be sorely missed as Ireland gear up for Australia clash \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andy Farrell<\/a> has expressed his disappointment that James Lowe\u2019s<\/a> contract with Leinster<\/a> and the IRFU<\/a> was not renewed and admitted the player will be sorely missed. But the Irish head coach effectively ruled out the possibility of the player re-entering his considerations for next year\u2019s World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed for us,\u201d said Farrell after announcing the Irish side to face Australia in Sydney this Saturday in what was the head coach\u2019s first press conference since the Six Nations. \u201cHe\u2019s a larger-than-life character and he\u2019s a brilliant player, but we all know sport and the ins and outs and the intricacies of all of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey become complicated from time to time and sometimes it works out, most of the time it works out for us, fortunately, but this time, obviously it didn\u2019t. I know that James is delighted with the contract that he got in the end and he\u2019s on to a new venture,\u201d said Farrell in relation to Lowe\u2019s move to Japan next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, we\u2019ll see him back in Dublin now because at this moment in time, chatting to him, he sees his family coming back and settling down in Dublin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrell was asked if he felt everything possible was done to ensure Lowe stayed, mindful that Brian O\u2019Driscoll had recently made it public that an unnamed person in the private sector had offered to act as go-between in helping to secure Lowe\u2019s retention.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I also read that. You know Drico, he wouldn\u2019t tell lies. But there\u2019s timing to all those bits, and, yeah, I suppose that didn\u2019t align,\u201d said Farrell, intimating that this intention came too late.<\/p>\n

Although the Irish head coach had wanted Lowe to be part of his plans until the next World Cup, which the player had described as his \u201cnorth star\u201d, Farrell maintained he had no direct involvement in the negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI speak to all the players. Am I involved in what gets offered and what gets signed? That\u2019s not my role.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss of Lowe to Japan after he was offered a potentially much-reduced, appearance-related one-year contract extension, is all the more surprising given Farrell had said during the Six Nations that he both wanted the player to re-sign and, akin to Bundee Aki and Jamison Gibson-Park, expected that to come to pass.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s Jamie Osborne scores a try against England in the 2026 Six Nations. Photograph: Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cWanted, yeah, and hoping and all of those things,\u201d stressed Farrell. \u201cThat\u2019s not to say that it was definitely going to happen. A lot of things have to happen and align to get to that point, and unfortunately it didn\u2019t happen that way.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you started off by saying that he\u2019d been missed on a tour like this, and yeah, we feel that. I mean, what a character and what a player that he\u2019s been for us, and he will be thoroughly missed, but at the same time, that\u2019s rugby, that\u2019s life. We have to move on, and somebody has to step up and take that mantle that James has done over the last number of years, superbly for Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jamie Osborne gets the nod to fill James Lowe\u2019s boots for Ireland against AustraliaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Farrell has opted to move Jamie Osborne from fullback to left wing for Saturday\u2019s game, and he added: \u201cSo there\u2019s an opportunity there for whether it be Jamie, there\u2019s a few injuries in that position at this moment in time. So I don\u2019t expect this tour solely to be the point that\u2019s gonna tell us exactly who\u2019s gonna take his place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Tommy [O\u2019Brien] injured and Calvin Nash injured and Shayne Bolton injured and Mack [Hansen] injured and all of that, these things will take their course and hopefully we\u2019ll get someone to fill the big shoes of James Lowe.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s the same every campaign, every year. Something happens that takes you by surprise a little bit, and I suppose it\u2019s the same as us missing Caelan Doris on this tour, Ryan Baird on this tour, Paddy McCarthy, all of that. That\u2019s just rugby and that\u2019s just life and the stars didn\u2019t align for whatever reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI certainly wish him all the best. I have done. I thanked him for everything that he\u2019s done for Irish rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farrell didn\u2019t explicitly rule out the possibility of Lowe yet being a part of his World Cup plans, but admitted the Irish policy of only picking provincially-based players (with the exception of Johnny Sexton during his two seasons with Racing 92) will be observed for the time being and most likely in the next World Cup too. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that we\u2019ve held the line with that for many, many years and whatever, but we\u2019ll see how that plays out in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, if we don\u2019t develop someone and bring someone through … I mean, push come to shove, we probably could have brought him out here. But is it the right thing to do to not develop someone and give people a chance?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the right thing to do, to have a look and give people a bit of space to be able to do that. So, we\u2019ll see how that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Gordon D\u2019Arcy: This tour could be the most useful thing to happen to Irish rugby in two yearsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Farrell has expressed his disappointment that James Lowe\u2019s contract with Leinster and the IRFU was not renewed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,61,60,1449,43964,86133,43],"class_list":["post-530199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-andy-farrell","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby","tag-james-lowe","tag-nations-championship","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530199","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=530199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}