When Ireland rose to the giddy status of the number one-ranked team in the world between July 2022 and October 2023, the golden harp of Leinster effortlessly translated into the green shamrock of Ireland. The East coast province has dominated the composition of the national team for so long that even the memory of Champions Cup-winning Munster side of 2006 and 2008 has been dumped upstairs, in the cobwebbed attic of the past.
Andy Farrell will be back after his Lions sojourn, but otherwise it will be a case of ‘as you were’ with as many as 10 Leinster players starting the Six Nations opener in Paris on Thursday evening, and three more doing bench duty.
Tadhg Furlong’s recovery seems to have come too late in the day to count in round one, but another Leinsterman from the younger generation will still be ready to step up and start in his place. Ireland’s top three choices on the other side of the front row – Andrew Porter, Paddy McCarthy and Jack Boyle – all play for the Dublin province, and now Ireland will have to dig deep, all the way back to their Munster muscle-memory for the fourth and fifth options.
Is the translation from provincial to national representation, from Leinster to Ireland still as seamless as it was two or three seasons ago? Ex-Ulster and Ireland hooker Rory Best thought not on a recent Ireland Rugby Social podcast.
“Leinster in the last number of years up until this year have played very similarly to how Ireland have played, hence why [ex-Leinster assistant] Andrew Goodman came in to be the Ireland attack coach,” he said.
“You’re lifting these players from one team into the other with the same system. Leinster this season more than last are playing differently, they’re kicking the ball a lot more. Even against Ulster at the Aviva [Stadium], you never would have seen Leinster get into the opposition 22 and put the ball up. Andy is definitely not going to do that.
“They will kick the ball a lot, because away from home, you need to. When you get in the pressure of the Stade de France, you will go into the automatic response which is what you’ve been trained every day at your club.
“The fact they’re so separate, it will take them a bit of time to get them back into that groove of slightly different running lines, staying slightly tucked and when to come on to the ball. How quickly they can use their time in Portugal, with it being France in Paris, just makes it so difficult.”
While the kicking claim is hard to support with stats – Leinster average 25 kicks per game up until round 11 of the URC season, while Ireland have averaged 30 over the past three Six Nations tournaments – Best’s comments do raise an intriguing ghost in the selection machine.
Under the stewardship of South African World Cup-winning coach Jacques Nienaber, Leinster have diverged increasingly from the attacking formula which made the province [and Ireland] so successful up until the last global tournament in 2023. Heresy of heresies, Leinster now scrum for penalties: a +9 differential at the last count, shaded for success only by three South African connoisseurs of the dark arts at the set-piece, the Stormers, the Bulls and the Sharks.
Current Leinster set exactly the same number of rucks per game as 2025 Six Nations Ireland at 90 per game, but that is well short of the numbers posted by the men in green in their last two Grand Slam and championship-winning years.
As prime Ireland built more rucks, so they built rhythm into their game and created more clear line-breaking opportunities. Those stats appear even more significant when juxtaposed with a comparison of their fourth quarters versus France over the last three years.
Those 56 rucks set in the fourth quarter of the 2023 match represent the bulk of the breakdowns most teams will look to build in an entire game, but Ireland achieved the same degree of ball-control in only 20 minutes. France shifted from a 6/2 bench split in 2023 and 2024 to a 7/1 in 2025, while Ireland moved from 5/3 in 2023 to 6/2 for the following two encounters.
One of Farrell’s most urgent priorities in Paris will be to regain the initiative in the final 20 minutes of the game. The ball-control which comes from quick, consistent ruck-building may still be his best option to achieve that aim.
Farrell will also need to find a way to expand his team’s scoring options with ball in hand. While France’s ability to counter-attack off kicks and turnovers has remained constant at around 40% of all their tries scored for the past three seasons, Ireland’s sense of purpose in that area has evaporated.
Back in 2023 Ireland were a side who could score from a wider variety of scenarios, but over the [ast two seasons their capacity to score tries from any situation bar a set-piece has melted away, almost to nothing. Two Ulstermen in the shape of Stuart McCloskey and Jacob Stockdale may be just the medicine the doctor ordered. Both are very big backs who offload naturally in the tackle, and so is their team-mate Jude Postlethwaite, who was been added to the squad in place of Bundee Aki. Between them, that trio has made 19 offloads in URC 2025-26 play to date.
With Farrell back at the helm and Simon Easterby restored to defensive specialist rather than coaching multi-tasker, there is every hope the defensive stats which doubled in the former’s absence – from 60 points and seven tries conceded in 2024 to 117 points and 14 tries one year later – will return to a more stingy ‘normal’.
Farrell will also be encouraged by the selection of a French matchday 23 more likely to feature a 6/2 bench split than a 7/1. Ireland’s 6/2 may be able to outlast France’s version of the same bench.
Wind the clock back to the same game in 2024, and Ireland were able to score two tries directly from five-metre lineout drives in the final quarter to put Les Bleus to the sword. That weakness in lineout defence may still be there.
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) February 3, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) February 3, 2026
The men in green need that kind of ball-control inside the French 22 to succeed again. Ultimately, they will have to reach back even further in time to find their boldness in a broken field. Ireland will come away empty-handed from the game if they are not bold enough to take their chances whenever the ball changes hands, however and wherever on the pitch they arise.
At the very end of the November tour window, the Wallabies kept pace with Les Bleus on the scoreboard by milking the most out of every kick or turnover return, or tapped penalty going.
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) February 3, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) February 3, 2026
— William Bishop (@RPvids1994) February 3, 2026
Right now, Wallaby prop Angus Bell must be one of the best finishers in world rugby! The only pity is the Ulster loose-head will not be available for the country in which he plies his trade on Thursday evening.
Someone give Angus Bell a No.14 shirt ⚡️
📺 Watch all the action LIVE on Premier Sports 🏉#BKTURC #URC | #ULSvCAR pic.twitter.com/FMIlATvA8a
— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) January 31, 2026
Bell or no Bell, Ireland will still be smarting from an end-of-year international campaign where the train came so spectacularly off the rails against the Springboks. They will be itching to set the record straight, and there is no better place to do that than Paris – if not in the early springtime, then in the last embers of winter.
France are currently running hot, 7-to-1 on favourites. You might get better odds for finding a four-leaf clover in the garden. Nonetheless, there are solid grounds for believing Ireland can turn the tables on the casino, even allowing for the decimation of their Leinster cohorts on the left side of the front row.
If they can match benches, 6/2 for 6/2, find their old ruck-building, lineout-driving identity in the final quarter of the game, and make the most of every turnover of possession, they have a chance to win. That clover on the badge may yet grow an extra leaf.
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One thing we don’t discuss is how Galthie is not afraid to experiment when he see’s other countries try things.
I think his 7|1 was a nod of the hat to Rassie and it certainly made a difference last year, I’m just a little surprised we haven’t seen more of it since given how well it worked.
I also like the new mobility of the back 5 forwards and it’s almost an experiment to see what a smaller, more mobile back row does defensively and how it can support a more expansive attack. Is this Gathie experimenting to understand the benefit of ENG 5x7’s may bring to the party.
The fact his team lost the penalty (and match) by being beaten to the breakdown by ENG’s faster back row and potentially creating more back row depth to allow a 6|2 or potentially 7|1 on those former fast tracked Aussie pitches is an interesting sub plot that may yet emerge with FRA.
Galthie may not be the original thinker like Rassie but I don’t think Galthie is afraid of experimenting in trying to stress test the different options and looks like we may see a slight variation of UBB vs Toulouse style that we have come to expect.
Nice article and it looks like an exciting match up.
France-Australia in November has definitely a lot of nuggets for Ireland including attitude. Play controlled loose (quick taps/counters etc) but give nothing loose to them (kick off the pitch when available), good contestables etc. I just watched those highlights and LBB is scarey. Leave it at that! It needs to be tight when they have the ball.
Discipline is also key and that is another area where the Nienaber grey zone Leinster defence has diverged from Ireland. Pre RWC 2023 Ireland conceded 3 yellow cards in 29 matches. In the 22 matches since that is 22 cards: 1 per match on average. Some of that is due to referees changing interpretations etc but discipline under pressure is now a major area of concern or a potential positive change.
Contrary to many Irish pundits representations, most Irish supporters I’ve chatted to are keen to get stuck into another 6N with a little pressure off. Hopefully a little pressure is off the boys and they can turn the occasion against France.
What was your take on Furlong’s absence? On the one hand it almost balances out vs Antonio but that does put a lot of pressure on fairly inexperienced props, to navigate against a ref that is frequently accused of guessing at scrum time.
On the flip side, it can only accelerate Clarkson, which probably doesn’t help in the short term but is likely the right decision when thinking about RWC 2027.
The French have picked a dynamic lineout pack rather than a heavy scrum pack. I don’t see the scrum as being definitive on Thursday.
Interesting, interesting - the only other big variable in there NB is the Jonny Sexton effect.
I often felt he got 5% more out of the rest of the team with his constant “encouragement” to the forwards and obviously he had more confidence to make decisions regarding kick from 9, to run and ultimately in some of the those last split second distribution moves.
Is it that International defences have simply improved since this time, with the migration to 6|2 bench splits, or is it the game management of IRE once Sexton & Murray left the decision making to others throughout those games.
I was just thinking that this might be the perfect type of match for Sexton to swing in his day. Not enough between the teams that accuracy and excellent match management couldn’t be the difference.
Sexton was a Schmidt man and the accuracy of a Schmidt team continued through Sexton’s insistence on training accuracy and excellence long after Joe’s departure. Farrell’s system was built on this.
Prendergast has those type of traits and maybe that’s what Farrell sees in him as well as the attacking goods. But Ireland and Leinster need to get that accuracy and discipline back. Starting from Thursday.