{"id":419951,"date":"2026-02-11T13:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/419951\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T13:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T13:28:07","slug":"six-nations-call-a-spade-a-spade-irelands-next-string-a-long-way-off-says-sean-obrien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/419951\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations: ‘Call a spade, a spade’ – Ireland’s next string ‘a long way off’ says Sean O’Brien"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recalling his own days of representing an Ireland XV, a team then called the Ireland Wolfhounds, O’Brien remembers an eye-opening realisation regarding the physicality required at the top level.<\/p>\n

“We were all there at some point. I remember saying to myself after those games, ‘you need to be so physical’. That’s the big thing you take out of those games.<\/p>\n

“You get run over and you get battered and you get thrown around the place and you say ‘I’m not there yet’. That’s the reality of it. <\/p>\n

“There’s no point saying anything else. In international rugby you need collision winners, physical people. You can be smart and a good player, but you need physicality and momentum.”<\/p>\n

O’Brien believes there is one exception from Friday’s defeated panel, adding that Ulster back row Bryn Ward could “go in there straight away” and contribute for Farrell.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old was part of the senior group for their Six Nations preparation camp in Portugal before turning out for the Ireland XV in Limerick then re-joining the full squad<\/a> to prepare for this weekend’s game. <\/p>\n

“Bryn Ward was very good. He’s a big, physical fella, I like what he’s about,” added O’Brien.<\/p>\n

“I think he can make the grade to go in there straight away.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recalling his own days of representing an Ireland XV, a team then called the Ireland Wolfhounds, O’Brien remembers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-419951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419951","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=419951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}