{"id":547412,"date":"2026-07-13T12:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547412\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T12:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:59:11","slug":"ogara-concerned-that-ireland-are-different-team-without-one-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/547412\/","title":{"rendered":"O’Gara Concerned That Ireland Are ‘Different Team’ Without One Player"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland earned a hard-fought win over Japan<\/a> on Saturday, although there will be quite a bit of room for improvement on the back of the performance in Newcastle.<\/p>\n

A number of fringe squad members were given a chance to impress in this game. However, some of them did not make the most of the opportunity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was clear that Ireland badly missed a number of key contributors, with one in particular standing out.<\/p>\n

Ronan O’Gara names one player Ireland can’t be without<\/p>\n

Jamison Gibson-Park has established himself as one of the best scrum-halves in world rugby in recent seasons, with the Leinster man showing no signs of slowing down at 34-years old.<\/p>\n

It seems as though he is becoming increasingly central to everything Ireland do on the pitch. While it is always a positive to have a player of his quality playing such a big role, it does lead to some potential concerns about the side when he is not in the starting XV.<\/p>\n

Speaking on ITV’s The Debrief with Dan and ROG<\/a>, Ronan O’Gara said that Ireland look like a completely different side without Gibson-Park, something that could be a concern moving forward.<\/p>\n

You’re always reliant on somebody of his class. In a country the size of Ireland, Jamison Gibson-Park stands out. Ireland will always be a stronger team when he’s there.<\/p>\n

What you don’t want is the gap between him and his no.2 or no.3 to is so sufficient. We saw Ireland without Gibson-Park yesterday and it’s a different team. That’s the reality of a player of such class. It’s not a slight on Craig Casey or [Nathan] Doak, that’s just the reality of top flight sport.<\/p>\n

When you essentially have only four teams to choose from it’s slim pickings in that regard. Casey and Doak have really important roles to play.<\/p>\n

But we have to say Ireland are a different team without Gibson-Park.<\/p>\n

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Craig Casey has acted as deputy for Ireland for a number of seasons, with Nathan Doak also playing his way into contention after his recent form at Ulster.<\/p>\n

However, as O’Gara points out, those players are not quite at the level of Andy Farrell’s first choice scrum-half as things stand.<\/p>\n

Ronan O’Gara names Ciaran Frawley’s big issue in Ireland ’10’ race<\/p>\n

Out-half is another position where Ireland have ongoing concerns, with Ciaran Frawley given the opportunity to start in that role against Japan.<\/p>\n

He went on to produce a rather patchy display, not making a strong case for another chance against New Zealand this weekend.<\/p>\n

Ronan O’Gara said that the reason for his struggles are obvious, having been handed his first start at ’10’ in 15 months in this game.<\/p>\n

Ciaran Frawley played at the weekend. He showed some good glimpses, but essentially he’s rusty. Why is he rusty? Because he doesn’t play for his club.<\/p>\n

He is still in the picture because of extraordinary talent. But no matter who you are you have to play in that position, you have to have 100 club games under your belt if you want to be a top level international fly-half.<\/p>\n

Ciaran Frawley hasn’t got that. He is looking to push on in the latter part of his career, he probably has six years left at the top level. He needs to play in that position. You need to make mistakes, you need to have that experience, you need to have defenders flying at you.<\/p>\n

You only get better by playing in that position. I think nowadays in the club game, you don’t get better by training, you get better by playing. You need to get out and make mistakes.<\/p>\n

That is the challenge for players nowadays, there is someone else there that can take your place. In my day you could make mistakes, play, and keep in the jersey week after week.<\/p>\n

Ciaran Frawley will join Connacht next season, presumably making the move in order to put himself in the frame for the Ireland ’10’ jersey moving forward.<\/p>\n

More reps will be needed in the position in order for to be a serious contender, with the Japan performance showing he does still have some work to do in that regard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland earned a hard-fought win over Japan on Saturday, although there will be quite a bit of room…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-547412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547412","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=547412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}