Have Ireland brought the right mix of youth and experience with them this summer? asks @curates_egg…
The Irish rugby summer tours (to North America and Georgia) come at the perfect point in the Rugby World Cup cycle. It is a new page for Irish rugby - in every sense - and a blank canvas for the management.
With 10 frontline Irish test players away with the Lions (and a couple injured or rested), it provides a perfect opportunity for the new management to start preparing its squad for the Rugby World Cup in 2015. Whilst Les Kiss is leading the tour, there can be no doubting Joe Schmidt will be taking a mightily keen interest at the very least. With 53 players, if you have missed out on selection in the two squads, you can be pretty sure you are not in the management's reckoning for 2015 right now.
As an Irish rugby fan, I am really excited about the Irish summer tours (certainly a lot more than the unwanted distraction of the Lions). The announced squads are a very stark indication that this is a new management team with a desire to take very little baggage with it - and an eye firmly on 2015.
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
The decks have been cleared and both touring squads are loaded with young and up-coming players. Whilst this is definitely exciting, the squads look a tad callow.
The flip-side of loading a squad with young and upcoming players is that you are sacrificing experience. Not only is a good balance of youth and experience important for winning games, it is also important for young international players coming through to have experienced players to learn off.
With Rory Best's overdue and merited call-up to the Lions, there are only 2 players in the squad capped before 2009 - Isaac Boss and Andrew Trimble - neither of them frontline internationals anymore. Boss is clearly there as an old head to mentor the two rookie outhalves on the tour. With Conor Murray selected for the Lions and Eoin Reddan injured, the selection makes sense.
Past it?
Excited as I am to see all these new players given a shot, there is the nagging question of whether a bit more experience might have been in the general interest - for the reasons outlined above. Which surplus-to-requirements but seasoned internationals might have brought something to the party?
A lot of Munster fans have expressed disgruntlement at the omission of James Coughlan. For me, his omission makes total sense, despite his having had two outstanding seasons at Munster. Unfortunately for him, he is too late in his career development. He will be almost 35 at the next Rugby World Cup: why give a player a first international cap on the key development tour for the world cup squad when it is as good as certain he will not be in that squad? He will certainly not bring any international experience to help integrate younger squad players, having never been capped (rightly or wrongly).
The result is that we will likely see Peter O'Mahony starting at 8 for Ireland. Ireland will clearly need options at 8 in the world cup and there seems to be a general consensus that O'Mahony could be well suited to the role. So Coughlan's omission is O'Mahony's, Munster's and Ireland's gain - and in all of their long term interest. You could definitely question the wisdom of making 23 year old O'Mahony tour captain. Surely he would be better served by trying to focus on playing at number 8 (where he has limited gametime for Munster). However, it is hard to pick an alternative captain in the squad who is guaranteed a starting place - apart from Mike McCarthy.
Other notable absentees include 94 times capped Donncha O'Callaghan, who enjoyed one of his best ever seasons and clearly would have brought frontline international experience to the tour. Given the freakish age bracket applied to second rows, neither he nor Leo Cullen (another Irish second row who also had a fantastic second half of the season), could automatically be ruled out of the next world cup squad. With Paul O'Connell and Donncha Ryan also not touring, these two must surely have been considered? Cullen's form, leadership and motivation has been overlooked so often, it is hard to get surprised but O'Callaghan may have been worth bringing.
In reality, the four touring second rows seem to have a good balance of experience (international and age). The front-line duo of Mike McCarthy (31; 10 caps) and Iain Henderson (21; 5 caps) has a nice youth-experience combo and is a great alternative to groom for the likely starting pair of O'Connell and Ryan. Devin Toner (26; 5 caps) finished the season with a bang, while he and Dan Tuohy (27; 10 caps) still have plenty who believe they have what it takes to contribute at the top level.
Apart from Coughlan, a couple of other players must surely have been considered for backrow. Shane Jennings (31; 13 caps) has had an outstanding season. He is one of those rarities in Irish rugby - as a true openside - and is also a true leader but he never really took the chances he got for Ireland. There were high hopes for Roger Wilson (31; 1 cap) after his decision to return to Ulster from Northampton but it hasn't happened for the number 8, with successive injuries and other players taking their chances above him in the pecking order (none more so than South African Robbie Diack - who is now Irish qualified but not in the main squad - and Pro12 player of the year Nick Williams - who could try and claim Irish qualification after his 3rd season in Ireland, having played for the Junior All Blacks).
With the retirements of Ronan O'Gara and Geordan Murphy, injuries ruling out Keith Earls, Gordon D'Arcy and Luke Fitzgerald (and Paddy Wallace), and the Lions tour, there can be no quibbles from 10-15.
In the balance
Weighing up all the options above, it is hard to make a convincing case for any of the more experienced excluded international players to have travelled, with a view to giving some experience to a bright-eyed squad. Either way, the slate has truly been wiped clean and those with provincial chips on their shoulders who are already trying to find a chink in the armour of the new management are really scraping the barrel. The path to Twickenham will start on this summer tour.
@curates_egg : Expat Irish rugby fan living on the continent but regularly travelling to Leinster and Ireland rugby matches. Strong believer in rugby as a family game and a fair sport.
