Six Nations<\/a> but ultimately finished third following an emphatic round-four defeat at home to eventual champions France.<\/p>\nFarrell, who was back to oversee an inconsistent autumn campaign, takes his side to Paris for the opening match of this year\u2019s tournament on Thursday, February 5.<\/p>\n
The Englishman has plenty to ponder amid a host of absentees and suggestions Ireland are a team in decline ahead of next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot being involved last year and being on the other side of the fence, I think the appreciation of the Six Nations just grows really,\u201d Farrell said at Monday\u2019s Six Nations launch event in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe older you get, the more privileged you are to be involved in this competition, the more you realise how special it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are forever moving and changing and you\u2019ve always different dynamics. There\u2019s always injuries. It\u2019s just the type of sport we have.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether that injury list is a bit bigger than normal\u2026you have to bring players in that might not have got that chance. It is what it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are always retiring, loss of form, all of that. We\u2019re at where we\u2019re at.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some good experience there making sure we learn from these experiences together as a group and connect together as a group and hopefully gel together for the here and now and the not too distant future as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Farrell has major front-row concerns after Jack Boyle joined fellow props Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy in the treatment room.<\/p>\n
Centre Robbie Henshaw will also miss the start of the tournament, while Calvin Nash, Jimmy O\u2019Brien, Ryan Baird, Shayne Bolton, Mack Hansen, Jordan Larmour and Tom Ahern are all sidelined.<\/p>\n
Connacht prop Billy Bohan, Munster second-row Edwin Edogbo and Ulster scrum-half Nathan Doak are the three uncapped players in the squad.<\/p>\n
Townsend confident in Scotland’s chances<\/p>\n
Gregor Townsend is adamant there is plenty for Scotland to be optimistic about as they head into the Guinness Six Nations on the back of a chastening autumn.<\/p>\n
The long-serving head coach came under fire in November after his side blew a 21-0 lead in losing 33-24 at home to Argentina.<\/p>\n
In addition, the Scots passed up what was widely viewed as a golden opportunity to defeat New Zealand for the first time in their history after seemingly being in the ascendancy at 17-17 before losing 25-17.<\/p>\n
Townsend believes the agonising nature of those defeats has helped sharpen minds within his squad, and he is also heartened by the fact all of his key men appear to be fit heading into the championship.<\/p>\n
The fact almost half of his group is made up of players from in-form Glasgow is a further source of encouragement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think, just in terms of our squad, we\u2019re in a better place because just now over 90 per cent of the players are available for selection,\u201d said Townsend, speaking at the Six Nations launch event in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat hasn\u2019t always been the case. I do believe the way the team played throughout 2025 in some of our biggest games, when I think back to New Zealand, France, England, the players have performed at a really high level.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we had those painful moments of not winning against New Zealand and Argentina, I see that as positive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were not positive at the time, obviously, but what we learned can help us when we\u2019re going to have those moments of adversity, when the opposition score a try or break our line, so we\u2019re better prepared now to deal with them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think also the fact Glasgow are playing really well and a lot of our players come from the Glasgow team, that is a positive going into the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Townsend is waiting for further news on fitness issues surrounding Liam McConnell, Dave Cherry, Jamie Dobie and Ewan Ashman but he was confident they would all be available for the championship opener away to Italy a week on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest rugby news stories from Wales and beyond ahead of the Six Nations Antoine Dupont of France…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,43326,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-393018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-six-nations","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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