Simon Easterby is expected to be confirmed as the British & Irish Lions defence coach and John Fogarty as scrum coach when Andy Farrell unveils his coaching ticket for this summer’s tour to Australia in London on Wednesday morning.
Easterby filled in for the Six Nations in the absence of Farrell due to his sabbatical with the Lions, and now Paul O’Connell is set to assume the role of interim head coach for Ireland’s summer Tests against Georgia in Tbilisi and Portugal, most likely in Lisbon, with the IRFU to confirm this in due course.
As with Emerging Ireland tours and Ireland A games, the IRFU will dip into the provinces to supplement the coaching ticket for the games against Georgia and Portugal, with the likes of Mike Prendergast, Denis Leamy and Sean O’Brien all to be potentially involved.
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The provinces had a largely frustrating weekend save for Ulster’s last-ditch 34-30 win at the Dragons which elevated them to ninth place. But following on from Munster’s 28-25 loss away to Glasgow on Friday, which left them in sixth place, Leinster suffered their first defeat of the season by 21-20 away to the Bulls on Saturday due to a scrum penalty deep into overtime, while Connacht were beaten 43-40 by the Ospreys − the sixth home win by three points or fewer over the weekend.
That left Connacht 12th, albeit only three points behind Munster ahead of next Saturday’s 26,000-plus sell-out between the two when all roads lead to Castlebar.
Pete Wilkins missed Connacht’s trip to Swansea, with scrum and contact coach Colm Tucker taking over the reins. Wilkins has been on sick leave for more than a week and his absence was not in any way performance related. He remains under contract as head coach until at least the end of next season.
Attack coach Mark Sexton is moving to Ulster at the end of the season, and defence coach Scott Fardy is also expected to depart. The Australian Rod Seib will be Connacht’s new ‘senior assistant coach’ for the 2025/26 season, with Wilkins having been involved in his recruitment.
[ Ireland rue missed opportunities in defeat to France in Six Nations openerOpens in new window ]
Meanwhile, when the Irish women’s squad return to their HPC base in Sport Campus Ireland this week to prepare for next Sunday’s Six Nations game against Italy in Parma, the frustration over Saturday’s 27-15 loss to France should give way to a legitimate sense of positivity. There was more than enough in their display for them to start from a good base, even while there are areas that can be improved.
“The Italians have got a cultural identity in terms of how they play their game,” said head coach Scott Bemand after Saturday’s defeat, following which Italy restricted England to a 38-7 win on Sunday in York.
“The ball is going to move around a bit, they will test us with chip kicks and all that. We will embrace the challenge. We have a great week ahead of us, we will take the lessons from [the game against France]. It’s fine. We’ve gone closer. It feels a bit like the Canada game in WXV where we felt we could have had something out of it. We will use the experience and try to close that gap faster than anybody else.”
But as the squad captain Edel McMahon stressed, Ireland need to remain grounded too and ensure they produce an improved performance next week in Parma against opponents who have beaten them in each of the last two seasons.
“The thing is not to get too ahead of ourselves knowing that we could have won. It’s actually still about showing up. We spoke a lot about how this game was going to pan out, the physicality that would be needed. You can talk and talk and talk, but if you don’t ‘do’, you’re not going to earn it.
“We knew we could have won that [French] game, we still need to make sure we implement that plan. Believing is one thing, doing is another.”
