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Judging by Andy Farrell’s team selection for tomorrow’s game at Twickenham, it was a case of going back to the tried and trusted – or the “grizzled and gnarled”, as Gerry Thornley puts it. Among the returnees are Jamison Gibson-Park, Tadhg Furlong, Tadhg Beirne and Josh van der Flier who have 274 caps between them, but, need it be said, the headline pick was that of Jack Crowley at outhalf.
Crowley has, says Conor Murray, “been through the ringer over the past three years”, an experience with which he is familiar. “When you are the main man, who has delivered for your country, only to be dropped, your ego takes a hammering.” But it says a lot about Crowley’s character that he has left “an imprint” every time he has been called from the bench.
Josh van der Flier needs to show much the same response having been recalled for the England game, but, as John O’Sullivan writes, the 2022 World Player of the Year has “invariably responded in a positive vein” when left out by club and country before.
Ireland are, though, “still in the investigation stage” of what is causing their recent “malaise”, Johnny Watterson reckoning tomorrow’s game will tell us much about Farrell’s “underwhelming” side that has been “barely treading water” of late.
Getting the scrum right would help. Although as Owen Doyle tells us, “writing about the scrum is like diving in at the deep end and hoping that it is, indeed, the deep end”. It has, he suggests, “become a blot on the landscape” of the game, and instead of fixing it, World Rugby have it “on death row”.
Meanwhile, on the under-20 front, Ireland will attempt to build on their narrow victory over Italy when they take on England this evening, John O’Sullivan previewing the game.
In football, Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley has expressed his wish that Ireland refuse to play Israel in the Nations League later this year. “Some things are bigger than football,” Gavin Cummiskey heard him say, and “genocide is most definitely one of them”.
Gavin also has “the cautionary tale” of Rovers’ talented youngster Naj Razi who endured a fruitless spell in Italy with Como 1907. He returned to Rovers last month without playing a single minute in Serie A.
In Gaelic games, Gordon Manning heard GPA chief executive Tom Parsons insist that the GAA remains committed to the integration of the three Gaelic games associations in 2027, while in athletics Ian O’Riordan has news of a blistering world-record breaking run by Keely Hodgkinson. And Sean Ingle reports on the debut of Ski mountaineering – “skimo” – at the Winter Olympics.
And in racing, Brian O’Connor writes about renewed calls for “the sport’s integrity to be put under the Horse Racing Ireland administrative umbrella”. But? “In an Irish context, such calls smack of a glib exercise in rearranging regulatory deckchairs on a sinking ship.”
TV Watch: Freestyle skiing, curling, bobsleigh, speed skating and ice hockey are on your Winter Olympics menu today (BBC 1/2 and TNT Sports). Sky Sports Golf has coverage of The Genesis Invitational from 3.15pm, Virgin Media Two has Ireland’s Under-20 Six Nations game away to England at 7.45pm, and at 8pm, Virgin Media Three has the League of Ireland meeting of Dundalk and Drogheda United.
