The nature of a more congested Six Nations, specifically in the first three rounds being run off on successive weekends, has no doubt contributed to Andy Farrell shuffling his deck more than normal. But while he constantly referred to freshening up his team for Saturday’s meeting with England at Twickenham (kick-off 2.10pm), he clearly had earmarked this one for his more grizzled and gnarled players too.
Having made a half-dozen changes for last week’s win over Italy, the most discussed of Farrell’s five changes to this starting XV will invariably be Jack Crowley’s recall at outhalf.
But the other four see the return of a quartet of Lions who have a whopping 274 Irish caps between them in Jamison Gibson-Park (34 next Monday), Tadhg Furlong (33), Tadhg Beirne (34) and Josh van der Flier (32).
It is surely no coincidence that Farrell has called upon their big-game mentality while also bringing back Finlay Bealham and omitting the inexperienced duo of Edwin Edogbo and Cormac Izuchukwu from the 23, as well as Sam Prendergast and Thomas Clarkson.
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Nine of this side were in the starting XV both in 2022 when Ireland won 32-15 and also two years ago when England derailed hopes of back-to-back Slams with a last-ditch 23-22 win.
“Yeah, we go back into the dark ages sometimes, we go back further than two years sometimes,” said Farrell when this observation was put to him. “Obviously last year was a pretty exciting game as well, like you would expect it to be.
“But yeah we’re ready for anything that’s going to be thrown at us because we expect England to have a reaction to that game,” he added in reference to England’s 31-20 loss to Scotland. “We know from what they’ve been saying, emotionally they thought they didn’t get it right.
“There was obviously talk at the beginning of the tournament that they want to take it to the last weekend when they’re in France. The Grand Slam is gone but the competition’s still on for them, and we’d like to think for us as well.
“So, it all adds up to what the Six Nations should be about. Different emotions week-to-week and here we are at the halfway stage and we’ve got a cracker to look forward to.”
Ireland have won 14 times at Twickenham since the first meeting there in 1910 and all were by one score until the 24-15 win which sealed the 2018 Grand Slam in a Baltic southwest London. Yet, staggeringly, whereas the bookies pretty much deemed the 2022 match a 50-50 encounter, Ireland were 12-point favourites and England were 4-1 to win when victorious two years ago. Now Ireland are back in their more traditional role of underdogs, regarded as better suiting the Irish psyche, as Farrell appreciates, but to his irritation.
“I don’t want that to be the case at all, but I suppose human nature tells you that that works for some people. But we want to be as good as we possibly can, and we want to be able to deal with being favourites or not really.
“I suppose what I’m saying is that it should be irrelevant if we’re in the right frame of mind.”
Farrell referenced the performances of James Ryan in the last two games after being dropped to the bench against France and of James Lowe when omitted altogether in Paris in clearly anticipating a response from his quartet of veterans.
Having suffered the indignity of being sent airborne by the Italian scrum, one would venture that Furlong will be as motivated as anyone.
“You’ve heard me say many a time as far as players making the room feel right. That experience enables Tadhg to say it as it is and allows people to get over themselves and give the best version of themselves because he’s in the room.
“He’s certainly portrayed that this week and you sense that he’s up for a big game because he knows what’s needed to be able to go to Twickenham and come out with a victory which is always going to be a hard task to do.”
While the outhalf debate dominates, in truth rarely has a change at 10 seemed so probable as the reinstatement of Crowley after his positive contribution to the win over Italy in tandem with Gibson-Park last week.
As eye-catching is that despite reverting to a 5-3 split, Prendergast misses out on the match day squad to Ciaran Frawley and was not even part of the travelling squad which flew to London on Thursday. Crowley has started only four of Ireland’s last 15 games since effectively being displaced by Prendergast in November 2024.
Frawley last played in the Six Nations in the corresponding game two years ago when a fifth-minute substitution for Calvin Nash, before being replaced in the 50th minute after suffering a head knock in the play that led to George Furbank scoring England’s second try.
The 23-year-old Prendergast had been in the match day squad for 15 of Ireland’s last 16 matches since making his debut against Argentina in November 2024, the one exception being when rested for the 106-7 win over Portugal last July.
Farrell has spoken with Prendergast as to “his journey” and using all these experiences to push his career on.
“You look at every walk of life or anyone who’s successful, in business or sport, and there’s always learnings there to be addressed and I suppose the most important thing as far as that’s concerned is honesty, to make sure that we’re able to address the right parts of the game and the conversations that I’ve had with Sam this week gives me confidence that that is going to happen.”
