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Farrell to spring last minute Emerging Ireland tour to SA - report

By Ian Cameron
(Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

It is being reported that head coach Andy Farrell is set to bring an Emerging Ireland team for a last-minute tour of South Africa this September.

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The Irish Independent’s Brendan Fanning reports that a squad of roughly 30 players will contest three games against non-URC teams across the course of three games against the likes of the Cheetahs, Griquas and Pumas.

Farrell is apparently keen to expose players to more game time in an Irish national squad environment after being said to be pleased by the learnings garnered during the recent Ireland trip to New Zealand.

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Ireland fielded a midweek side against the New Zealand Maori in July – losing the first game and winning the second – and it is quite likely that the touring squad for South Africa will closely resemble that team. That means the likes of Craig Casey, Ciaran Frawley, Jimmy O’Brien, Jeremy Loughman, Dave Heffernan, Tom Toole, Kieran Treadwell, Joe McCarthy, Cian Prendergast, Nick Timoney and Gavin Coombes could all be involved.

It might not be news that is widely welcomed by URC organisers. The players involved are likely to miss URC Rounds 2 through to 4 as a result of the late tour and could leave the Irish provinces significantly undermanned as a result.

Given that senior internationals that participated in summer tours are not typically fed back into provincial squad selection at the start of the URC, it means that the four provinces could be forced into fielding some relatively callow teams in the opening rounds.

Should the report be accurate, the logic of playing an Emerging Ireland team against second-flight South African sides instead of packing down against URC opposition is not immediately clear.

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If the games are played during URC 2, 3 and 4, Leinster players will miss a derby game against Ulster, as well as fixtures with Benetton and the highly rated Sharks.

Munster players will miss two fixtures against the Dragons, Zebre and a derby make with Connacht, while Connacht will miss the aforementioned derby with Munster as well as fixtures with Edinburgh and URC champions the Stormers.

Ulster for their part will miss a derby with Leinster, as well as Ospreys and Scarlets.

A frequent criticism of the league has been that the Irish provinces in particular have been reluctant to play their best teams. The optics of this tour certainly don’t help that perception.

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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