Having advocated for Farrell to rotate his squad entirely against Japan in order to give his front-liners a rest and improve his back-up resources, I must be satisfied that Farrell has met me more than half-way. Only two of the 36 man squad – Darragh Murray and Zac Ward – fail to see game time in the first two matches of this tour, while Robert Baloucoune misses out through injury.
There are nine changes to the starting team with Sean Jansen starting on his first cap, and three more uncapped players on the bench. Nevertheless it is a relatively experienced 23 man squad with 617 caps compared to 898 in the squad which beat Australia. Frawley starts at no. 10 for the first time while Jamie Osborne switches to the more familiar position of full back. Eight Ulster players feature in the match day squad which is a far cry from the one or two players of recent times.
There were, of course, many individual and system errors to fix from the match against Australia but the question must be whether these were due to lack of practice or tiredness after a long season. Whatever the cause, Farrell is resting Tadgh Furlong, Dan Sheehan, Joe McCarthy, Cian Prendergast, Josh van der Flier, Jamison Gibson-Park, Sam Prendergast, Garry Ringrose and Hugo Keenan in preparation for next Saturday’s meeting with the All Blacks at Eden Park.
With Jeremy Loughman (Brain injury) the only other injury concern, there is a heavy reliance on Tom O’Toole at loosehead with Stuart McCloskey also carrying a heavy load in midfield. It seems Aki is no longer trusted to see games through without disciplinary issues while James Ryan is retained at lock because his work in the tight is deemed essential with Murray a different style of player.
Overall, you have to applaud Farrell for trusting his squad to do a job against a good Japan side coming off a convincing win against Italy. The match could be just as fraught as that against Australia, but little could have been gained by flogging more of Ireland’s senior players ahead of a daunting assignment in Auckland.
Lets hope for an improved display with the debutants playing their full part. All of them have the potential to be part of this squad for a long time and I have been particularly impressed by the rapid strides made by Illo under Lancaster this season. He rarely started games in his first three years at Connacht and wasn’t always impressive when he came off the bench. But this season he has been a revelation even displacing Finlay Bealham from the Connacht first team.
Billy Bohan has made amazing strides for a 20 year old prop and Jansen and Bryn Ward have been a key part of the improvement at Connacht and Ulster this season. Tadgh Beirne is an outstanding Captain and Casey and Doak have provided much of the leadership for Munster and Ulster. Whatever the result, these players will not die wondering, and Ireland will know a lot more about our strength in depth after this fixture.
Ireland (v Japan):
15. Jamie Osborne (Naas/Leinster)(16)
14. Jimmy O’Brien (Naas/Leinster)(12)
13. Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster)(84)
12. Stuart McCloskey (Bangor/Ulster)(29)
11. Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster)(42)
10. Ciaran Frawley (UCD/Leinster)(13)
9. Craig Casey (Shannon/Munster)(28)
1. Tom O’Toole (Ballynahinch/Ulster)(22)
2. Rónan Kelleher (Lansdowne/Leinster)(49)
3. Thomas Clarkson (Blackrock College/Leinster)(14)
4. Tadhg Beirne (Lansdowne/Munster)(71)(captain)
5. James Ryan (UCD/Leinster)(81)
6. Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster)(60)
7. Nick Timoney (Queen’s University/Ulster)(12)
8. Sean Jansen (Connacht)*
Replacements:
16. Tom Stewart (Ballynahinch/Ulster)(5)
17. Billy Bohan (Corinthians/Connacht)*
18. Sam Illo (Buccaneers/Connacht)*
19. Cormac Izuchukwu (Ballynahinch/Ulster)(4)
20. Bryn Ward (Ballynahinch/Ulster)*
21. Nathan Doak (Banbridge/Ulster)(1)
22. Harry Byrne (Lansdowne/Leinster)(4)
23. Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht)(70).
Frank Schnittger is the author of Sovereignty 2040, a future history of how Irish re-unification might work out. He has worked in business in Dublin and London and, on a voluntary basis, for charities in community development, education, restorative justice and addiction services.
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