Andy Farrell flew out to Portugal with his Ireland squad this week, sharing his thoughts on who will wear the No.10 shirt against France in their February 5 Six Nations opener.
The Irish are again preparing for the start of the tournament with a warm-weather camp at Quinta do Lago. That’s a wise choice given how they would have been left training indoors or on rain-sodden pitches this week in Dublin after Storm Chandra.
Munster’s Jack Crowley and Leinster’s Sam Prendergast both started two games each in Ireland’s four-match November programme, but Harry Byrne is now part of the No.10 conversation again following his winter form with Leinster. Farrell also still considers Ciaran Frawley as another out-half option, even though he has lately occupied the No.15 Leinster shirt.
Aside from the rotten run of injury at loosehead, where Andrew Porter, Paddy McCarthy and Jack Boyle have all fallen by the wayside in recent weeks, who will play at 10 for Ireland has been the hot topic coming out of the Investec Champions Cup pool stages.
“We’ll stay open-minded…”
Asked by Virgin Media, the Irish TV broadcaster, who will be his 10 in Paris, Farrell, speaking before the midweek revelation that Bundee Aki had been sensationally dropped from the squad for disciplinary reasons, said: “It’s only right that I stay open-minded about it all and see how people compete against each other and deal with that type of pressure is pretty important.
“We’ve four guys in camp that can do the job for Ireland. It’s just down to who is going to take the bull by the horns, isn’t it, and run with it. Yeah, we’ll stay open-minded on that one.
“But what I would say is that the two lads that everyone has been talking about for a good time, and rightly so in regards to Jack and Sam, it’s nice to have the four of them in competing because it will only bring out the best in them.”
Farell didn’t coach in last year’s Six Nations, agreeing instead to a sabbatical so that he could scout players in his role as British and Irish Lions boss for their tour to Australia.
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Ireland’s ambition
Instead, it was left to assistant Simon Easterby to step up, and Ireland fell short in their ambition to win a third successive title. A heavy defeat to eventual champions France in Round Four in Dublin was their downfall, and there has been no bounce in big results since Farrell’s return as the Irish lost to New Zealand and South Africa in their four-match Autumn Nations Series campaign.
That has left Ireland dropping to No.4 in the World Rugby rankings and they are going into the 2026 Six Nations in the unusual position of not being considered a title favourite. Farrell, though, is still aiming very high.
“If you are asking me where can we get to, we can get to that type of place 100 per cent [be title winners] because what’s the point if you didn’t have the ambition to do that. In that period [2023-2024], we played some pretty special rugby.
“Are we aiming to do any less? No, we’re not, that’s for sure. We have 16 guys there who are less than 10 caps; we need to get experience into the squad. Everyone has to go through the learnings to say where it is we are trying to get to, so we are trying to be the best we possibly can be and that’s at the top of World Rugby.
“We want to win every game. We are sure that we don’t want to throw anything. We want to be as competitive as we can. I have never been a coach who tries to shy away, saying hopefully we’re good enough to finish second or third or whatever and we’ll learn from that. Of course, we will learn from every experience, but we still want to win. Other teams will be saying that as well.
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“I always believe that the strength of the team is showing each other that you can be better than the individual things. We need to prove to ourselves that we are able to go beyond our own expectation and that has to be the ambition.
“There is no point in being average. We are a team and class ourselves as being all in it together. We might not have the individual brilliance of some of the countries as far as athletes and whatever, but we are smart and we’re skilful and we’re fit, all of that adds up to being a good team.”
Mention of ‘athletes’, Farrell arrived in Portugal with three uncapped players, including big unit Munster forward Edwin Edogbo. “Edwin is someone we have obviously looked at for quite some time,” said the head coach.
“There has been a bit of stop-start stuff there in regards to injuries and it’s the same for a few but you can see the impact that he has had, certainly when he has been coming off the bench, how powerful and dynamic he is. It’s super exciting to get to work with him.”