The Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa in 2022 will serve as a benchmarking process, directly and indirectly, for the current squad who depart on Saturday for their three-match assignment in the land of the world champions.
Simon Easterby, head coach again as he was two years ago, mentioned that half a dozen players from that Emerging Ireland squad went on to make their senior Test debuts. On Wednesday, backs coach Andrew Goodman figured that the aforementioned group had accumulated around 50 caps since then.
As an initiative it was an unqualified success despite initial misgivings in some quarters, and the hope is that it will again provide a similar pathway for another tranche of players.
Goodman is Ireland’s new backs coach, having moved from Leinster at the end of last season. He shadowed his predecessor Mike Catt during Ireland’s two Test drawn series against the Springboks and now returns to South Africa.
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The New Zealander is delighted to have a whistle around his neck again. He is relishing the first pitch session at the IRFU High-Performance Centre, where he will get to work with some of his previous charges at Leinster and a selection of the best young players from the other provinces.
Goodman said: “We want to build depth and have competition in positions. We want guys to have that opportunity, see them in our structures, see how they play, how they learn. It’s just [discovering] that Irish way of doing things that is different to the way the provinces do things.
“A lot of it is around our language, a little bit around how we want to play the game. The provinces are doing an amazing job, all the lads are very well coached. We are just trying to build on that but also add our flavour and what makes us [Ireland] different.
“It’s a great opportunity for these boys to come in and experience what [senior] Test weeks are like and how they take on information and put that on to the field. It is important that they take it in from the first day. We can’t have people waiting around and holding back. We need them to come and put their best foot forward straight away.”
Goodman said that time spent with his new coaching colleagues in the senior Irish set-up during the summer was invaluable.
“In terms of South Africa, it was a great little introduction to see how the Irish set-up works, the language they use and how the week is run.
“It was a great experience, and I suppose the energy they all came in with, the way they connected and the level of expectation around the way they do things, that accountability was huge. You could obviously see from the outside that it was a well-connected group. It was just great to see first-hand that energy and connection that they drove.
“It was great to get a step ahead coming into the Emerging Ireland tour now and with November later on, so I guess there are differences in the way weeks are run but nothing major.”
Goodman will be responsible for the team attack with Emerging Ireland before paring back the role a little in November when head coach Andy Farrell is in charge once again.
Goodman said: “I’ll be doing a lot of work with the backs on strikes [moves] from scrum and lineout and on skill work for the team and assisting Andy, obviously, when it comes to November time. He’s not coming on this trip, so [I] get to do a little bit more of the team attack as well, but I’ll be assisting him with those bits of the attack when it comes to November and beyond.”
Ireland’s three tour matches against the Pumas, Western Force and the Cheetahs will be broadcast on the IRFU’s new streaming platform IrishRugby+, a sports innovation project with Enterprise Ireland and the Cork-based company, Wiistream.
IrishRugby+ will stream selected games free from the men’s and women’s Energia All-Ireland Leagues (AIL) as well as carry additional games such as the upcoming Emerging Ireland tour. IrishRugby+ will also provide links to additional club streams that are made available to them on a weekly basis, in an effort to promote and publicise as many games as possible.
Fans can access games free by registering on IrishRugby+.
Schedule of live games
September 28th – Women’s AIL: Blackrock v UL Bohemians (5.0); October 19th – Women’s AIL: Suttonians v Wicklow (5.0); October 26th – Men’s AIL: Ballynahinch v Garryowen (2.30); November 9th – Men’s AIL: St Mary’s v Terenure (2.30); November 16th – Women’s AIL: Tullow v Suttonians (5.0); November 23rd – Women’s AIL: Ballincollig v Cooke (5.0); December 7th – Women’s AIL: Belvedere v Galwegians (5.0); December 13th – Men’s AIL: Corinthians v Buccaneers (5.0)
2025
January 4th: Bateman Cup Final. January 25th: Men’s Junior Cup Final. March 1st – Men’s AIL: Cork Constitution v Lansdowne (2.30); March 8th – Women’s AIL: Railway Union v Blackrock (5.0); April 13th: Women’s AIL semi-finals; April 19th: Men’s AIL Division 1A semi-finals.
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