Ian Keatley doesn’t believe Andy Farrell will be tempted to start Dan Sheehan at number 8 during Ireland’s Nations Championship games next month, despite the Leinster captain’s “incredible” switch to the back row last week.<\/p>\n
With Caelan Doris and Jack Conan both sidelined with due to injury, Sheehan was moved from his regular position of hooker to number 8 in Leinster’s BKT United Rugby Championship interpro with Munster, and played the full 80 minutes in his side’s 24-18 win<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I think it went really well, I thought he was incredible,” Keatley said of Sheehan’s performance in the back row on the RTE Rugby podcast.<\/a><\/p>\n “You know if he’s a good player or not if you can put a guy in a different position and he just adapts to it; he’s obviously got incredible rugby intelligence. He’s got great a feel for the game. He obviously has the physical qualities where he’s explosive, he’s fast, he’s dynamic, he just gets it.<\/p>\n “He was even like in the lineout. He was either playing as the plus-one, or he was lifting. It looked like it came easy to him. And I thought it was great to see.”<\/p>\n Doris and Conan have also been ruled out of Ireland’s upcoming November Tests, starting with Argentina on Friday week.<\/p>\n But with Ireland head coach Farrell able to call on several number 8 options from around the provinces, Keatley is unconvinced about the value of starting Sheehan in the back row for a game this month.<\/p>\n “I know a lot of people are talking now that this could be the hybrid [forward] for Ireland going forward, if they can get [Ronan] Kelleher and Dan Sheehan on the pitch. But listen, I think it would be a needs-must [situation].<\/p>\n \n “I think it would be like Cian Healy in Scotland, a few years ago where he went in at hooker.<\/p>\n “I don’t think they’ll start Dan at eight or anything like that, but it’ll be a needs-must if there’s ever a crisis going down the line with a few back row injuries.<\/p>\n “It’d be a little bit disrespectful to Sean Jansen, Cian Prendergast, Brian [Gleeson] that this guy, even though he did an incredible job, but you’re there, you’re looking around and you’re thinking about your competition from places and then all of a sudden Dan Sheehan comes back, who’s a Lions player, and you’re like, ‘Oh, now I have to deal with that’<\/p>\n “I just think it would be a little bit too cute.<\/p>\n “It is a good little trick up the sleeve if you need it, if there was an injury to the back row and you could move Dan to 8 and bring Ronan on. It is a good option, but I wouldn’t say that Andy will start him there.”<\/p>\n Connacht’s Sean Jansen looks the frontrunner to start at 8 for Ireland next month, after he impressed in two caps against Japan and New Zealand in the summer, while Cian Prendergast, Nick Timoney and uncapped James McNabney will also be vying for a spot at the base of the scrum.<\/p>\n And Keatley believes the injuries to Doris and Conan are presenting Farrell with the ideal chance to road-test a new player at number 8.<\/p>\n “Caolan and Jack are both injured, so it’s a good opportunity to get another number eight with a bit of game time in the saddle,” he said.<\/p>\n “Sean Jansen, or even Cian Prendergast – get them gametime, because as we see at World Cups, you can lose players quite easily and you just want another player just to fit in there seamlessly.<\/p>\n “I would always say you always want to keep your best players in their best position. Dan is a hooker, and yes, he’s a hooker who can play 8, but keep your best players in their best positions,” he said.<\/p>\n Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Keatley doesn’t believe Andy Farrell will be tempted to start Dan Sheehan at number 8 during Ireland’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-667983","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\/667983","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=667983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}