Where stands Irish Rugby heading into 2025?

Having won the Six Nations, tied a series with the Springboks in South Africa, and won 3 out of four November internationals, Ireland stands ranked #2 in the world, which is some improvement on our quarterfinal exit at the hands of New Zealand in the World cup in October 2023.

That ranking can be deceptive, however. Ireland’s performance against the All Blacks at the World Cup was much better than our performance against them last month, and our subsequent performance against an improving Joe Schmidt coached Australia wasn’t any better.

Overall, it gives the impression of a team in marginal decline from the heady heights of the #1 ranking we achieved before the last World Cup, and again during 2024 after our defeat of South Africa. Injuries to key players are part of the answer.

Having had one of the best disciplinary records of any major team, often recording less than 10 penalties per match, we conceded 13 against both the All Blacks and Argentina. Our handling, which had been superb earlier in the year went downhill, with a plethora of scrums from knock-ons leading to scrum penalties against us. Tadgh Furlong’s prolonged absence through injury didn’t help, both in the scrums and in his contribution around the pitch, where his replacement Finlay Bealham hasn’t been in the same league in terms of his scrummaging, handling or distribution.

Dan Sheehan’s prolonged absence after an ACL injury sustained in South Africa also didn’t help our line-out, which began to malfunction with increasing frequency, and our performance at the breakdown became fitful and inconsistent. Peter O’Mahony’s gradual demotion to a fringe player didn’t help here either, both at the breakdown and in the line-out.

Finally, Sexton’s replacement at 10, Jack Crowley has had some very good moments in attack and defence, but he simply doesn’t yet carry the same authority as Sexton, or get his backline moving quite as well. These are all marginal differences, but at the top level, that is all it takes to slip off the pace just a little.

All of which is not to say that Furlong, Sheehan, O’Mahony, and Crowley’s returning to full form or fitness will solve all problems. At 35, O’Mahony is coming towards the end of his career, and Farrell never quite settled on who his replacement should be, playing Beirne at 6 as an interim measure. Doris, Baird, Cian Prendergast, and Izuchukwu have all been tried at 6 without entirely convincing, although all have age on their side.

Furlong hasn’t been quite the player he was for some years now, although at 32, he still has time to recover his mojo. We are still desperately short of test class props to cover when he and Porter are unavailable. Healy, at 37, can’t last forever, and Farrell decided not cap Jack Boyle, the only other loosehead in the squad against Fiji. In my book the experiment of playing Tom O’Toole, normally a tight head, at loosehead against Fiji didn’t work and we must hope Boyle comes through sooner or later.

But there were also bright spots in the November tests. The absence of Sheehan forced Farrell to gamble on playing Leinster academy hooker Gus McCarthy against Fiji and Australia and he didn’t let Ireland down, scoring two tries in the process. We may have found a replacement at least for the aging Herring (34) as third choice Irish Hooker, and perhaps more.

The Fiji and Australia also confirmed Sam Prendergast as a star in the making, an impression he has since confirmed for Leinster in their Champions Cup matches against Bristol and Clermont. Crowley may still be #1, but we now have a viable alternative in the making, with a very high potential ceiling.

I remain to be convinced about Frawley at 10, simply because he has so rarely started and controlled a game from there and has been bedevilled by injuries. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t an excellent option at 22, covering 10, 12 and 15 – like Crowley – especially if we want to go for a 6:2 bench split.

All of which is bad news for the Byrne brothers, for so long the pretenders to the Sexton throne. Ross simply isn’t enough of a running threat to take some of the heat off his outside backs, while Harry hasn’t really built on his early promise, not helped by injuries. Both may end up taking their talents elsewhere, probably to France, but it would be a pity if they were lost to Irish rugby. The other provinces are not overflowing with talent at 10.

The Champions Cup games also confirmed the appearance of Irish rugby in slight decline. Leinster didn’t function particularly well and were reliant on non-Irish eligible talent in the form of Jordi Barrett, RG Snyman, and Rabah Slimani to get them across the line. They are nowhere near the level of Toulouse and Bordeaux right now – who both gave Ulster something of a hiding.

Ulster seemed to almost throw the Toulouse match by fielding a weakened team, but it didn’t help them close the deal at home against Bordeaux either. French teams have traditionally not travelled well – or prioritised the Champion’s Cup – but Toulouse and Bordeaux are very much the exception. It is little consolation that Toulouse did a similar demolition job on Exeter in Exeter and that Bordeaux beat Leicester with quite a bit to spare.

We always knew Ulster were going to have to go through a rebuilding phase, but the worrying thing is that so few test class players seem to be coming through. Only Cormac Izuchukwu, and before that (briefly) Tom Stewart and Robert Baloucoune have been capped recently. Ulster cannot rely on Henderson and McCloskey (both 32) forever, and sadly, Jacob Stockdale’s return to form has again been cut short by injury. But I suspect that Richie Murphy is playing a long game. He has built up quite a talented squad of academy players and Scott Wilson, in particular, looks like he might have a high ceiling.

Ulster are good enough to make the URC play-offs by finishing in the top 8 but will need to win their home matches against the likes of Munster tonight who are currently placed 11th. to Ulster’s 10^th. Munster have also been struggling for consistency, starting well against a weakened Stade Francais at home and then losing 16-14 to Castres away in a match they could and should have won had they been able to reduce their error count.

Ulster are missing Henderson but Munster, too, have their injury problems at lock, missing Kleyn through injury and Beirne because of the IRFU player management protocols.  Peter O’Mahony, Craig Casey (who had an excellent November series)  and Conor Murray are also on their injury list. John Ryan is at Loosehead instead of his preferred tight head side due to injuries to Loughman and Josh Wycherley but I fancy Munster may be just about strong enough to make it across the line.

Connacht have had a good run in the Challenge Cup with bonus point wins against Zebre at home and Perpignon away while resting their international players, so should be good enough to give Leinster a hard time in the Aviva. Leinster have quite the injury list at the moment and are running out of senior backs. Academy wing, Andrew Osborne, younger brother of Jamie looks a promising prospect, however. I will post the teams here when they are announced.

Overall, however, I wouldn’t be too despondent about the prospects for the Irish teams in 2025. I would have Ireland as marginal favourites to win the 6 nations for an unprecedented third time in a row because we have England and France at home – although France will have Dupont available for the Six Nations again. An improving Scotland in Murrayfield will pose quite a threat as well, with places on the Lions team on the line. We will need to fix our line-out and scrum problems and get and keep or key players healthy, but we haven’t become a bad team in November. A bit more invention from kick-offs and behind the scrum might not go amiss either, but here we may have found a long term solution in Prendergast.

Leinster will again be there or thereabouts at the end of the season and Munster, Ulster, and Connacht are all in with a shout of making the final stages of the URC and Challenge Cup competitions respectively. If someone can magic up a few test class props all could be well again with Irish rugby sooner than we think!

ULSTER (v Munster): Michael Lowry; Werner Kok, Jude Postlethwaite, Stuart McCloskey, Zac Ward; Aidan Morgan, John Cooney; Andrew Warwick, Rob Herring, Tom O’Toole; Alan O’Connor (capt), Kieran Treadwell; James McNabney, Marcus Rea, David McCann.

Replacements: John Andrew, Eric O’Sullivan, Scott Wilson, Harry Sheridan, Matty Rea, Dave Shanahan, Jack Murphy, Rory Telfer.

MUNSTER: Mike Haley; Calvin Nash, Tom Farrell, Alex Nankivell, Shane Daly; Jack Crowley, Paddy Patterson; John Ryan, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer; Tom Ahern, Fineen Wycherley; Jack O’Donoghue (capt), John Hodnett, Gavin Coombes.

Replacements: Eoghan Clarke, Dave Kilcoyne, Oli Jager, Evan O’Connell, Alex Kendellen, Ethan Coughlan, Rory Scannell, Brian Gleeson.