The next fortnight of Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup rugby live on Premier Sports will be a final chance for players to catch the eye of the Ireland boss ahead of the Guinness Six Nations.
Rob Kearney.(Image: )
Now is the moment for some of Ireland’s bright young rugby talents to step up and show Andy Farrell they deserve international recognition, according to former full-back Rob Kearney.
The next fortnight of Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup rugby live on Premier Sports will be a final chance for players to catch the eye of the Ireland boss ahead of the Guinness Six Nations, after two wins from four games in November.
And Kearney, who won 95 caps for Ireland, as well as winning the Champions Cup four times with Leinster, admits that with some established Ireland players having struggled after last summer’s British & Irish Lions commitments, the lack of in-form alternatives is a concern.
“I know from being a player myself, the season post the Lions tour is very difficult,” said Kearney, who will be part of the Premier Sports punditry team providing live coverage of 15 Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup matches this weekend.
“Mentally it is hard to get up for it, you’re carrying niggles into the new season. It takes an extra effort for the players to get up for it.
“That’s not an excuse, it’s their job but you would have hoped that after the autumn internationals, they would have come back to their provinces and started to find a bit of form.
“It’s not panic stations by any means, we are in the mid-cycle of a World Cup, there is time, but you would like to see a bit of progress pretty soon.
“I think now is the time to blood a couple of players. Without being disrespectful to Italy and Wales, they are probably the two games that a head coach might say that those are the two games where I can throw someone in.
“There are injuries as well, and that is always the best opportunity to put some new guys in. At the same time, I don’t think there have been too many players across the country who have been beating Andy Farrell’s door down saying, you have to pick me.
“That is why you are probably getting left with some of the same combinations and the same faces as you have had before and there is an argument to say that some of those guys aren’t playing the best rugby of their career and there is a little bit of a hangover from last season.
“Unless a player is banging the coach’s door down, playing so well that you have to pick me, the tendency is to go with the tried and tested.”
This weekend sees all four provinces involved in big games, with the pick of the matches Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle heading to Dublin to take on Leinster, having beaten them in consecutive finals in 2021 and 2022.
Since then, Leinster have got the better of the French side in each of the last two seasons, in the quarter-finals and then the pool stages.
Ahead of this week’s encounter, an opinion piece in the Irish Independent stated that the time is right to bring O’Gara back into the coaching landscape in Ireland, with Leinster the perfect landing spot for the Munster legend.
Having enjoyed a few legendary battles with his international colleague down the years, Kearney was not as convinced by that suggestion.
He said: “I can very much get on board with Ronan O’Gara coming back to Ireland but coming back to Leinster, I’m not so sure about that.
“I do feel that the DNA of a club and a coach and history all matters to a team. Putting one of our fiercest rivals at the helm, I’d sleep a little less soundly at night-time.
“I don’t think (he would want to). I don’t know, certainly not at the moment. He’s won multiple Champions Cups, so the team is going very well, living in France.
“I’d say he does have ambitions to come back to Ireland at some point. I would say ambitions come to Ireland and coach Leinster, maybe a little bit limited.”
Rob Kearney joins Premier Sports’ TV team as rugby fans across the UK and Ireland tune into 15 live games from round three of the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup. There’s a weekend of blockbuster action ahead including the big clash on Saturday at the Aviva Stadium as Leinster host Ronan O’Gara’s Stade Rochelais live on Premier Sports 1 from 5.15pm. Big games. Bigger moments. Join in at premiersports.com from just £11.99 a month @ premsports.tv
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