WHEN IRELAND KICK off their November series against New Zealand on Friday 8 November, Andy Farrell could be without the men who have been his top four hookers.
Dan Sheehan, Rónan Kelleher, Rob Herring, and Tom Stewart are the four players to most recently line out for Ireland at hooker.
First-choice Sheehan suffered an ACL injury on last summer’s tour of South Africa and is due to be sidelined into the New Year.
Second-choice Kelleher sustained an ankle injury while playing for Leinster against Benetton two weekends ago, subsequently undergoing a procedure on the issue.
His recovery timeframe is four to six weeks, putting him under pressure to make the All Blacks game. We’ve seen plenty of quick recoveries from top players before but Kelleher is clearly a major doubt, even if he should be good to go for at least some of the subsequent autumn Tests against Argentina, Fiji, and Australia.
Meanwhile, Ulster duo Rob Herring and Tom Stewart have yet to play this season due to their injury problems.
Herring, who helped Ireland to their second Test win over the Springboks in July, has been dealing with a calf injury. Stewart, who made his Ireland debut in the World Cup warm-up games in 2023, is out with an ankle injury.
The Ireland boss might have hoped that Herring could prove his fitness in the three-and-a-half weeks before the All Blacks visit Dublin but it’s expected that he will take longer to recover.
Stewart’s ankle injury is set to keep him out beyond the November Tests.
So if Kelleher isn’t fit, Connacht hooker Dave Heffernan appears to be the man in pole position to start against the Kiwis.
33-year-old Heffernan last played for Ireland two years ago when he came off the bench in Ireland’s first Test against the All Blacks in New Zealand in July 2022.
More recently, Heffernan was called into the Ireland squad as injury cover for the last week of their tour of South Africa last summer when Sheehan suffered his knee injury.
Given that Heffernan has now enjoyed a punchy start to the new season with Connacht, that presumably leaves him well-placed to be called on by Farrell.
Munster hooker Niall Scannell has 20 caps for Ireland but has not featured since Farrell took over ahead of the 2020 Six Nations, but Scannell’s uncapped team-mate Diarmuid Barron has been involved in Irish camps during Farrell’s tenure.
Barron trained with the Ireland squad during their World Cup pre-season last year but was unfortunate to miss a big chunk of the 2023/24 campaign with Munster due to a foot injury, during which time Scannell came back into fine form.
Connacht’s Dylan Tierney-Martin was part of the Emerging Ireland squad in 2022 along with Barron and Stewart, so he’s a young player the Irish coaches have been keeping an eye on.
The recent Emerging Ireland squad included 21-year-old Leinster academy hooker Gus McCarthy, who returned from that tour of South Africa early to feature for his province against Munster on Saturday night.
23-year-old Lee Barron started that game for Leinster in the absence of Sheehan, Kelleher, and fellow senior hooker John McKee but Barron himself was then injured in the first half. His ankle issue meant McCarthy played the entire second half.
It would be a big leap for someone like McCarthy, who captained the Ireland U20s to a Grand Slam and World Cup final in 2023, to suddenly find himself in the senior Ireland mix but he is clearly a talented hooker.
If Heffernan starts against New Zealand, the safest bet would be to go with one of the Munster hookers on the bench but perhaps Farrell will take the chance to greatly accelerate a younger player’s progress.
The other senior-contracted hookers in the Irish provinces are Ulster’s John Andrew and James McCormick, Munster’s Scott Buckley and Eoghan Clarke, and Connacht’s Eoin de Buitléar and Adam McBurney, but none have been involved under Farrell.
The Ireland head coach tends to be relaxed about injury issues such as the current situation with his hookers and that’s unlikely to be different this time around.
He will be hoping to see Kelleher prove his fitness to feature in at least a few of the November Tests, giving him a proven option as the starter in the number two shirt.
Seven-times capped Heffernan would love another shot at showing he can thrive in Test rugby, particularly having started the season strongly with Connacht. He has faced pressure for the starting spot in recent seasons from the likes of Tierney-Martin but remains a key man in the westerners’ squad and is now one of Connacht’s vice-captains.
The fact that Scannell has played plenty of international rugby before and that Barron knows the Farrell set-up well provides further assurance for the Ireland coaches.
