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Covid risk forces Ireland to bring 31-man squad to Paris, but still no room for Cooney
Andy Farrell has named the Ireland matchday 23 that he hopes can beat France next Saturday and potentially deny England the 2020 Six Nations title. In doing so, though, he shed light on the extremes of Test rugby in the Covid era. Six Nations officials are looking to complete the championship seven months after its March finale was postponed due to the pandemic, but travel has become very different in these uncertain times.
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Whereas Ireland would have travelled to London last February with just two additional players on standby outside the matchday 23 to face England in case of any 11th-hour injury, they will fly out to Paris with an extended squad of 31 – a total of eight additional players outside the chosen matchday 23.
“We’ll be travelling with 31,” revealed Farrell after he named an Ireland XV showing one change from last weekend’s win over Italy, Robbie Henshaw starting in place of Garry Ringrose who suffered a broken jaw 27 minutes in that victory.
“You’re allowed 29 to warm up. You need to take a bigger squad with you now with Covid risk etc, so you need to prepare and have all bases covered. We’ll travel with 31 guys, 24 to 31 who will be prepared to step in at any given moment.”
Unfortunately for John Cooney fans, it doesn’t mean the Ulster scrum-half will be with the travelling party. Cooney came off the bench in the three February Six Nations games as a replacement for Conor Murray, but he was axed from the squad earlier this month.
Just the 1?? change for Farrell's Irish title-chasers https://t.co/NIQdxeym4D
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 28, 2020
A doubt over Jamison Gibson-Park’s hamstring at the start of the week resulted in Cooney getting summoned to training, but that will be the extent of his involvement after New Zealander Gibson-Park was passed fit on Wednesday. “It’s like last week, Kieran Marmion came in with us into the hotel in Dublin before the game. It’s the same thing applies, he will travel us to Paris,” said Farrell, explaining who his third-choice scrum-half currently is.
Table-topping Ireland head to Paris knowing that a bonus-point win will guarantee them the Six Nations title and Farrell, who has four games under his belt as head coach after succeeding Joe Schmidt, can’t wait to see what unfolds.
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“Wow, it would be unbelievable to even think about it [winning the title]. I’m not allowing myself to go there. Just to be involved with this group of lads is a special group. If you win trophies, you win trophies together and it’s certainly nothing to do with me, it’s a collective effort.
“It doesn’t get any better really. It’s an unbelievable challenge ahead of us just to go over there to try and win a Test match. If that doesn’t get you excited then you don’t deserve to be in a week like this in the first place.
“It’s going to be a game of feel… it certainly won’t be one of high-risk strategy otherwise you have seen the type of team that we’re playing against, we could end up shooting ourselves in the foot massively.
“It’s a daunting task. We have won there before when there was a full house. This will be a little bit different but the game is still the game. The clashes will still happen, the tactics will still unfold and it’s who handles that on the day the best will come out on top.”
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"It would be a massive endorsement of Farrell’s ambitious, unproven appointment if he can deliver the two bonus-point wins that would clinch Ireland a Six Nations title triumph."
?? @heagneyl https://t.co/lAGCzxWgGz
— RugbyPass+ (@RugbyPassPlus) October 24, 2020
Comments on RugbyPass
Those are pretty good draws for the two top Aussie teams. I certainly wouldn't want my Chiefs to have a quarter final in Brisbane. None of the top teams will want the Crusaders.
1 Go to commentsHonestly, I am a bit lost here …. Ireland - RSA was (at least in my opinion) perhaps (from a purely technical / rugby-skills-show point of view) the pinnacle of the RWC2023 - almost flawless playing (putting aside the kicking of RSA which was the difference between the two teams), rugby at it’s very best …. if I were a Bok and after the game some Irish lads came around saying “see you in 5 weeks same place”, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of it as being in any way “arrogant”, rather a sort of jolly “if we both continue to play like this, no one could stop us” - besides, few of us fans would have, at that time, been surprised to see the same teams playing on 23 september and 28 october 2023 ….. well, we all know Ireland chose to hit a slump to keep the QF curse alive …..
133 Go to commentsThere’s value gleaned from having an All Black star running and training with your team. How many games he starts (or even where he plays in the backline) will be decided on a week by week basis based on the needs for that week. But the overall learning and growth for all concerned, I’d think, is massively beneficial. Especially for Irish players.
8 Go to commentsSon, whith just " raw athlete “ , you are able to beat “ better rugby players “ by 74 points…. May be England should recruit in athletics….
1 Go to commentsPffft. It’s not a one-way street bud and Irish teams don’t seem to have had an issue taking kiwi players previously.
8 Go to commentsParticularly great to have captain Scott Barrett back after going off last week for the Crusaders. Codie Taylor a real leader and mighty Tamaiti Williams join Fletcher Newell in the front row. Those 2 will make a big difference. Great bench with the likes of Tom Christie, Jamie Hannah etc who are playing well. Should be a great derby.
1 Go to commentsDoes a blitz defence not have a weekness against a well-placed grubber kick, perhaps angled cleverly. All the defence is up and the full-back can only cover so much ground. Thoughts?
28 Go to commentsWhile Iose is destructive in the Canes set-up, he is not big for an international 8 and could struggle against the top teams. With his speed, he could be developed into a seven but, as Ben points out, he doesn’t show a scavenging game with the Canes or make dominating tackles. Sotutu has shown a step up this year and attitude plus motivation seems to be the big areas of growth. Deserves another AB shot imo.
3 Go to commentsNaholo is my only question mark for this side. He wasn’t the only one who had a forgettable game against the Brumbies but he was passive, defensively poor and generally lacked energy. Needs to get a whole lot busier for me. I would have liked to see Sullivan on that wing with Higgins on the bench (if staying with a 6-2 as BeegMike points out on here!)
3 Go to commentsWell, I am sure that Eben said exactly what he meant to say, exactly how he meant to say it. Does he strike you as a man that doesn't know arrogance when he sees it. He should know it because he has shaken the arrogance out of many foes before.
133 Go to commentsPls get it into your thick arrogant heads that the final was played by two Southern Hemisphere teams. The best against the best and that Argentina was just unlucky otherwise non of the Northetn Hemisphere teams would have seen the light of day.
133 Go to commentsAs long as New Zealand youth are involved in sport they are passionate for, and are well supported, it’s all good. I love league as well as rugby. NRL clubs have long since scouted the First 15 competitions, the NH and Japan scout super rugby and NPC. It’s a miracle there’s any players left for the all blacks to pick from.
4 Go to commentsI'm a Bok fan, so I don't say this lightly, but he is one of my all time favourite players. I am really going to miss watching him play. Thanks for many great memories. You are a true legend of the game.
3 Go to commentsBest way to deal with all of this is to play another game.
133 Go to commentsIt’s 12-15 games Luke. Ringrose has barely played in 2024 and Henshaw and Keenan have also been out for spells in the same time period. There are always injuries and for younger players to play with the likes of Barrett will be great for them. It’s just looking for negatives where there are none.
8 Go to commentsAndy Goode pushing his own agenda with very dubious considerations on refereeing performances. Luke Pearce speaking a bit of French doesn’t make him a good and adequate referee for the Champions Cup final; his latest refereeing performance in particular was not so great.
4 Go to commentsJordie knows that he has to earn the right to put on the jersey, whatever that jersey might be.
8 Go to commentsThe best outside centre in the world at one point. He will be greatly missed.
3 Go to commentsYip his great for the big moments when needed as a safa really enjoy watching him
4 Go to commentsOne that will start to come up from now on is penalties for back pushes during kick chase scrambles. Very difficult to detect. In Croke Park if you replay the Hendy NH try, you will see Furbank push Porter in the back, who collides with Larmour knocking the ball across into Hendy’s path to dot down. A more significant example was in the RWC QTR final where Arendse pushes Fickou into two other French players for the ball to spill into Arendse’s path for him to gather and run in to score SAs first try. Not cheating if you are not caught and very difficult to spot but with kicking becoming so critical I feel its an area that will referreeed/TMO-ed more.
4 Go to comments