AFTER THE FURORE and friction that met the announcement of the Emerging Ireland tour in 2022, the aftermath of yesterday’s confirmation of a talented 33-man squad for the upcoming trip was relatively sedate.
With lots of advance warning and a great deal more interaction between the IRFU and its four provinces this time around, it seems as if everyone is on the same page.
The group that will fly out to South Africa on Saturday week does still include players who would have either started URC games or been on the bench in Rounds 2, 3 and/or 4 of the league, but this is a squad with less experience overall.
As with 2022, Andy Farrell will not be part of the tour, with Simon Easterby getting another ouing as head coach before taking on the senior job on an interim basis next year.
Easterby and co. brought four Test-capped internationals in 2022 - Robert Baloucoune, Caolin Blade, Shane Daly and Max Deegan – but there are none this time, even if Cormac Izuchukwu and Sam Prendergast were on the recent senior tour of South Africa.
You get the sense that Izuchukwu and Prendergast’s involvement with Emerging Ireland is very much with the November Tests in mind. It would be no great shock to see that duo kicking on to win their first caps this autumn, potentially in the Test against Fiji.
They belong in the bracket of players their provinces would have used in the three rounds of URC action they will miss. There are plenty of others. For example, tour captain Alex Kendellen has become increasingly important in Munster, Matthew Devine will be competing with Blade for starts in Connacht this season, Tommy O’Brien would likely have featured heavily for Leinster early in the campaign.
Ulster are surely particularly upset to lose Izuchukwu but the overall sense is that the provinces are more at ease with the tour this time. The Irish coaches weren’t able to bring every single player they ideally would have, with the provinces having highlighted the areas where they most needed to keep players.
There’s no doubt life would be easier for the provinces had the Emerging Ireland team stayed dormant but the IRFU has seized the opportunity presented by Toyota deciding to start funding a competition for the competition-less Cheetahs in Bloemfontein in 2022. It was a sweet deal for visiting teams, with the usual costs of touring vastly reduced.
The IRFU and its then-performance director David Nucifora had been discussing a possible relaunch of this layer of international rugby anyway and the Toyota Challenge fell into their laps.
Making it more palatable this year is the fact that the Emerging squad includes even younger players than last time. It’s fitting that many of them truly are still emerging into the professional game. Evan O’Connell, Danny Sheahan, Jack Murphy, and Stephen Smyth were playing for the Ireland U20s only a few months ago and while O’Connell is someone Munster believe can play senior rugby very soon, the other three probably wouldn’t have featured in the URC during this window.
There are also players who have their pathway to more senior provincial appearances blocked by more experienced squad members – there are plenty of good looseheads for Jack Boyle to compete with in Leinster, for example – so this tour should be a good window of exposure for them.
Emerging Ireland won all three of their games in 2022 but the victories against the Pumas and Cheetahs, who they play again this time, were narrow and hard-fought. Images of the Irish scrum being taken apart remain fresh and that set-piece power promises to be one of the tests on the upcoming tour.
Instead of the Griquas, who were poor two years ago, Ireland will take on the Western Force of Australia in their other game in Bloemfontein, which is up at altitude on the Highveld where it should be hot.
The IRFU like to cite how Jack Crowley, Joe McCarthy, Calvin Nash, Jamie Osborne, Cian Prendergast, and Tom Stewart have all kicked on to play Test rugby since the 2022 Emerging Ireland tour but most of them probably would have even without that trip.
Still, many players – even those who haven’t yet pushed into Farrell’s senior squad – speak highly of their experience in South Africa in 2022. They appreciated the detail of the coaching from Easterby, Paul O’Connell, John Fogarty, and Mike Catt, who has been succeeded by Andrew Goodman. The players enjoyed the intense challenge of three games in the space of 10 days, of learning the Irish playbook, of suddenly being team-mates with different people from other provinces.
Nearly all of them benefited simply from knowing that the Irish coaches viewed them as players who could drive on into Test rugby.
So while it remains somewhat disruptive to the provinces, this Emerging Ireland trip seems like a worthwhile exercise and certainly less controversial than last time.
Emerging Ireland squad
Loosehead prop: Jack Boyle, Jordan Duggan
Hooker: Gus McCarthy, Danny Sheahan, Stephen Smyth
Tighthead prop: Jack Aungier, Ronan Foxe, Scott Wilson
Second row: Cormac Izuchukwu, Darragh Murray, Harry Sheridan, Evan O’Connell, Conor O’Tighearnaigh
Back row: Alex Kendellen (captain), James Culhane, Seán Edogbo, Sean Jansen, Alex Soroka
Scrum-half: Matthew Devine, Cormac Foley, Ethan Coughlan
Out-half: Sam Prendergast, Jack Murphy
Centre: Hugh Cooney, Hugh Gavin, Seán O’Brien, Jude Postlethwaite
Back three: Shayne Bolton, Tommy O’Brien, Ben O’Connor, Rob Russell, Zac Ward, Andrew Osborne
