{"id":661270,"date":"2026-10-21T09:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661270\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:44:09","slug":"ireland-rugby-key-questions-as-head-coach-andy-farrell-prepares-to-name-nations-championship-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661270\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland rugby: Key questions as head coach Andy Farrell prepares to name Nations Championship squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farrell will be without some key men in November. <\/p>\n

Having missed the July games with Australia, Japan and New Zealand, captain Caelan Doris is still unavailable as he recovers from knee and foot issues. <\/p>\n

With Doris already sidelined, Farrell would have been concerned to see Jack Conan leaving Stade Marcel-Michelin with his arm in a sling<\/a> after the province’s Champions Cup win over Clermont on Saturday. <\/p>\n

The potential absence of both Doris and Conan could create an opportunity for Sean Jansen, who scored a try on his Test debut against Japan before featuring off the bench in the All Blacks defeat. <\/p>\n

Fly-half Jack Crowley remains unavailable because of a vascular injury<\/a>, and while first-choice scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park is expected to be included, the 34-year-old has not yet featured for Leinster this season because of a groin strain.<\/p>\n

Props Jack Boyle and Paddy McCarthy are still missing, but Farrell can call upon first-choice loose-head Andrew Porter for the first time since last year’s defeat by the Springboks in Dublin. <\/p>\n

Porter, 30, missed the 2026 Six Nations with a calf problem and, having returned for Leinster in late March, he was ruled out of the July Tests with a similar issue. <\/p>\n

Porter’s Leinster team-mate Ryan Baird is also available again. The 27-year-old utility forward impressed at blind-side flanker during the 2025 autumn Tests before a fractured tibia forced him to miss the Six Nations. He returned for Leinster late last season but missed the July games.<\/p>\n

Popular winger Mack Hansen is also back after an injury-ravaged 2025-26 season<\/a> comprised of two Test appearances and a single run-out for Connacht.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farrell will be without some key men in November. Having missed the July games with Australia, Japan and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-661270","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\/661270","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=661270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}