1 day Ago By Irishexaminer.com
Simon Easterby says the IRFU is willing to look beyond its own system should the need arise to recruit a short-term coaching replacement for the national men’s team while head coach Andy Farrell is with the British and Irish Lions. Farrell is the tip of an Irish coaching pyramid that includes Easterby in the role of defence guru, Andrew Goodman (backs), Paul O’Connell (forwards) and John Fogarty (scrum). His looming loss will leave a major hole in that.
Easterby has this week been named as interim head coach for the Six Nations and, likely, the unconfirmed 2025 summer tour to Georgia and Romania. Farrell will remain with Ireland for the November internationals before turning the page onto the Lions. Goodman is new to his role with the setup having spent the last two seasons with Leinster.
Easterby has confirmed that the prospect of a new face on the management ticket has been discussed “briefly” and will be addressed in greater details via a debrief in December. Logistics might be hard to work. The Six Nations sits plum centre in the rugby calendar, which would mitigate against co-opting someone involved with the provinces then.
The summer tour provides more leeway in that sense but there is also the option of broadening any search. Felix Jones is one obvious candidate. The former Munster player followed a long successful Springbok stint with an England chapter that appeared to be going swimmingly as defence coach until he resigned last month.
It has been reported that Jones has to work a 12-month notice period but it would be a major coup if he were available. Along with Ronan O’Gara and Girvan Dempsey, Jones was part of Ireland’s 2017 summer tour coaching staff under former coach Joe Schmidt. “There's no closed book on this,” said Easterby.
“It's pretty open and it's exciting really. If we think there's a need for something, and we're losing a big personality in Faz and a lot of IP [intellectual property] in what he brings to the group..
. “If it means someone comes from within the system or outside, that'll be a conversation we have with David Humphreys. I think he's open-minded to whatever adds to the group and makes the group as strong as it can be with what you're saying around the continuity.
” Humphreys, in his role as the IRFU’s performance director, will be hands-on with any decisions there and Easterby added a layer to it when stating that Farrell's absence “might mean a couple of coaches stepping up to do a few other things”. Whatever the make-up of the brains trust in the first half of 2025, Easterby will be central to it. First brought on to the Irish ticket by Schmidt in 2014, this will be a big 12 months for him, starting with his role as main man on next month’s Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa.
A former head coach with the Scarlets in Wales, this will be his second time fulfilling the ‘Emerging’ brief having guided the first such tour in 2022. Six of the tourists on that party have since been capped at senior level. There will be 33 players hoping to follow that same path when they depart as a squad on Saturday week for the three-game tour against the Pumas, Western Force and the Cheetahs.
All told they will be away from their clubs for over three weeks. Leinster’s Sam Prendergast and Cormac Izuchukwu of Ulster return to South Africa having toured there in non-playing roles with the senior side in the summer. Izuchukwu and Leinster’s James Culhane were also part of the 2022 Emerging Ireland setup.
Munster’s Alex Kendellen captains the squad while Zac Ward, fresh from a starring role at the Olympic Games sevens at the Stade de France with Ireland, and a short-term Ulster contract, will also be on board. The Connacht pair of Sean Jansen and Shayne Bolton are others to come from a non-traditional route. Jansen is a New Zealander, Bolton a South African, but both qualify for Ireland via Irish grandparents.
Easterby has admitted that the squad is “thin” in certain areas. A third No.10 is one obvious pinch point.
The majority are only a year or two out of the Ireland U20s setup and this will be a first time on the international stage since for most on the plane. “There’s clearly opportunity for players to step up beyond [U20s] and we’ve shown in ‘22 that that was the case,” said Easterby. “So there’s clearly been a few guys who’ve shown an example of how that can work.
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