To be a fly on the wall in UCD when Leo Cullen was told 12 of his players were being taken to South Africa for the start of the season.
The 33 names announced this week for the Emerging Ireland tour of South Africa are effectively being taken away from their club sides just as the United Rugby Championship (URC) season kicks off. It is clearly disruptive, with the selected players missing at least two games of early action on the weekends of September 28th and October 5th.
Assistant coach Robin McBryde was asked on Monday at Leinster’s press conference whether the tour would impact the season. “It will, won’t it. It hasn’t happened since I’ve been here so I’m still waiting to see what the fallout will be from it. It will test our depth etc, but you just got to get on with it.”
Club owners in England and France would scream blue murder if the RFU or FFR asked for players from clubs at the beginning of the season before potentially needing them again for preparation and involvement in the Six Nations come the new year.
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Of course, nobody knows what the provinces really think about losing their talent to Emerging Ireland, where they will be made feel like, and expected to behave like, international players. Some like Ulster’s Cormac Izuchukwu and Leinster’s Sam Prendergast already know the feeling as they were involved in Irish camps before.
Prendergast was selected for this year’s Six Nations squad as a training panellist, alongside Munster players Oli Jager and Thomas Ahern, with Jager getting capped at prop. Izuchukwu was also picked as part of the Irish squad for the two match Test series against South Africa during the summer.
But to justify taking the players on tour there must be real belief that the players facing the Pumas, Western Force and Cheetahs will pay off in terms of bringing them on and identifying who has the potential to punch through into the Irish squad and make the November Series or Six Nations squads.
Looking at the last tour in 2022 would have given the IRFU some expectation that the effort is worthwhile. Several of the names selected to face the Griquas, Pumas and Cheetahs in Bloemfontein went on to force their way into Andy Farrell’s thinking for the 2023 World Cup, last season’s successful Six Nations and the recent South African series.
Calvin Nash and Jamie Osbourne were selected two years ago. Nash has now eight caps for Ireland and was awarded Munster’s player of the season recently. Osbourne has played twice for Ireland, both of them at fullback against South Africa last summer, scoring a try on his debut with Farrell commenting “whenever he plays he’s got presence. He suits the way we play.”
Munster’s Antoine Frisch was one of three centres. The French native has since jumped ship and made his debut for France in a Test series win against Argentina in the summer, scoring his first international try in the process. Cold comfort there, but another who has since progressed.
The three outhalves selected in 2022 were Jack Crowley, Ciaran Frawley and Jake Flannery. A shoulder injury picked up while playing for Leinster subsequently ruled Frawley out, while Connacht scrumhalf Caolin Blade, Munster backrow Alex Kendellen and Leinster’s Alex Soroka also pulled out of the travelling party ahead of their departure.
Crowley and Frawley (replaced two years ago by Cathal Forde) have punched through since with Crowley now the established Irish outhalf. Well, maybe. It was Frawley’s epic brace of dropped goals from 40m out late in the second Test against South Africa last summer that earned Ireland a match win and series draw.
Does the Emerging Ireland tour actually benefit Irish rugby?
The Emerging Ireland scrumhalf picks of two years ago were the injured Blade (replaced by Ben Murphy), Nathan Doak and the Irish Australian, Michael McDonald. Blade had already played against the USA for his first cap and earned another against Italy as a replacement in 2023.
The IRFU can thus point out that certain backs from two years ago did make an impression and have contributed to the current Irish team.
Of the forwards Cian Prendergast and Joe McCarthy have been able to elbow their way into starting Irish sides, with McCarthy establishing healthy competition among the locks. McCarthy, now 23-years-old and with 11 caps, travelled in 2022 with Munster’s Tom Ahern, Leinster’s Brian Deeny and Ulster’s Izuchukwu.
All told while it might seem like tough love for the provinces from the IRFU, with 12 Leinster players, eight from Munster, seven from Connacht and six from Ulster departing at the beginning of the domestic season, it is a policy that has borne fruit. Recent history has taught us as much.
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