Nations Championship: Ireland lean on leader Dan Sheehan as injuries gut the back row

Dan Sheehan did not ask for the captaincy, and he did not hesitate when it came. That plain readiness is the trait Ireland now lean on hardest. Andy Farrell has named a squad for the home leg of the Nations Championship that most coverage calls settled, and on paper it is. Look at it through the man wearing the armband and the picture changes: Ireland go into November asking their hooker to lead a pack stripped of the players who usually carry the leadership, and possibly to fill the hole in it himself.

The obvious read is about selection puzzles at blindside, outside centre and fly-half. The sharper one is about load. Caelan Doris, the regular captain, is still out. So is Jack Conan, the other first-choice number eight. The back row that sets Ireland’s tempo has lost its two senior ball carriers, and the player expected to steady it is a front-rower who took the job over a phone call.

The phone call that made Dan Sheehan captain

Sheehan told The Irish Times in July how it happened. Doris had hurt his foot in Leinster’s URC final win over the Bulls, and Farrell rang. “I remember getting the call on day two of the celebrations of the URC and it didn’t faze me at all. I was more disappointed for Caelan at the time,” Sheehan said. “But it was just a quick call, like 30 seconds: ‘Will you do it?’ And I was like, ‘yeah, sure, I’ll see you in Sydney’ because he was on the flight ahead.”

He had done the job before, in the Six Nations win over Wales in Cardiff and in the defeat to New Zealand in Chicago, so Sydney was his third time leading Ireland out. He framed it modestly. “We have a great group of leaders in the squad already, so it’s just a good chance for me to develop my own personal skills but also get a grip of the squad in a full sort of month on tour,” he said. His stated focus was keeping the group “switched on and not sort of overawed by detail.”

That is a hooker’s instinct: strip it back, win the contact, trust the set piece. Tommy Bowe went further this autumn, calling Sheehan the only true world-class player in the Irish setup, according to Balls.ie. Farrell has now handed him the armband for a second window running.

A back row with its leaders missing

The 36-man squad carries two uncapped Ulster players, fly-half Jamie Benson and back-rower James McNabney. Mack Hansen, Andrew Porter, Ryan Baird and Tommy O’Brien return after missing the July window injured. The injury list is the real story: Doris, Conan, Jack Crowley, Harry Byrne, Iain Henderson, Calvin Nash, Jack Boyle, Paddy McCarthy and Bryn Ward were all unavailable for selection. Conan hurt his shoulder scoring a try in Leinster’s Champions Cup win at Clermont, RugbyPass reported.

Connacht’s Sean Jansen, who scored on debut against Japan in July, looks set to start at number eight. Baird and Cian Prendergast are competing for the blindside jersey. Forwards coach Paul O’Connell framed the depth as a strength. “It’s not hard to select, actually. It’s a great place because you have lots of options there. But it’s competitive, and I think competition makes guys train well, prepare well and play well,” he said.

Options are not the same as experience. The42 reported this week that Sheehan should start at hooker, “albeit with the now realistic possibility of moving to the back row during games.” Read that line twice. Ireland’s captain is also their emergency back-row cover, which means the man throwing into the lineout and setting the tone may finish a Test doing a flanker’s work.

Where Ireland stand in the Nations Championship

The July tour showed both sides of this team. In Sydney, Ireland trailed by twelve points inside half an hour and won 33-31, Tom Clarkson’s late try and Sam Prendergast’s conversion sealing it. Sheehan’s quick tap-penalty set up a Josh van der Flier try; his own converted score was ruled out by the TMO because James Ryan had taken out a tackler. A bonus-point win over Japan in Newcastle followed. Then Auckland: a 40-21 defeat to New Zealand, 14-0 down inside the first half-hour, and a performance RugbyPass described as behind the eight-ball from minute one.

Farrell’s main lesson, The42 reported, was that Ireland were not fit enough, and pre-season leaned hard on conditioning. Sheehan had named the other pattern himself on the eve of the opener in Sydney. “It’s probably been a theme in a few campaigns now where we’ve had a slow start and built nicely through it,” he said.

The table leaves no room for a slow start this time. After the July rounds, France lead the northern pool on 12 points, Scotland have 11, and England and Ireland have 10 each, according to SA Rugby magazine. The final standings decide the pairings for the finals weekend at Twickenham, first in the north against first in the south and so on down to sixth against sixth.

Ireland’s November fixtures

All three Tests are at the Aviva Stadium: Argentina on Friday, November 6 (8.10pm), Fiji on Saturday, November 14 (8.10pm), and a sold-out meeting with world champions South Africa on Saturday, November 21 (4.40pm). The finals weekend at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium follows from November 27 to 29.

Farrell names his team for Argentina on Wednesday. Sam Prendergast is working back from a wrist injury, with Ciarán Frawley and Benson the alternatives at fly-half while Crowley’s recovery from a vascular issue in his leg drags on. Garry Ringrose’s injury opens outside centre to Robbie Henshaw, Jamie Osborne or Bundee Aki.

The last time Porter played for Ireland was the night the Springboks took the Irish scrum apart, a year ago, and Baird was injured in the same game. They return for the rematch. So does the captain who said yes in half a minute, and if Ireland need to climb past France, it is his front row, and maybe his shift in the back row, that has to hold against South Africa.

Tags: Andy Farrell, Dan Sheehan, Ireland rugby, Nations Championship, rugby captains