Ireland have arrived in the land down under, with forwards coach Paul O’Connell delighted to confirm that his side is injury free, ahead of the opening round of the Nations Championship.
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The men in green take on the Wallabies this Saturday at the Allianz Stadium in Sydney, with Andy Farrell’s men in the hunt for a strong start to their Southern Series. Ireland will take on Australia, Japan and New Zealand across the next three weeks, with O’Connell impressed by the training intensity shown by his side, since landing in New South Wales.
“Everyone’s fine, everyone’s training and has trained hard and trained well today.” O’Connell confirmed, from the Ireland team hotel in Sydney.
“Wednesday morning we got the ferry to Manly, we had a nice morning out there, and the weather was beautiful, lot better than it’s been in the last few days. So, it kicked us off nicely. We have a gym across the road, we’re training at Leichhardt Oval which is little bit of a bus drive, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful training ground.
“We’ve been lucky enough with the weather when we’ve trained as well. So it’s good, we have tomorrow off, some of the lads are going to the rugby league this evening, a few lads going out for dinner, it’s a great city to be touring in.”
The 2026 Nations Championship marks the dawning of a new era of international competition, with the traditional Summer tours now a relic of a bygone time. The next three weeks marks the ‘Southern Series’ of the Nations Championship, with the tournament then returning in November, for the three week ‘Northern Series’, and the ‘Finals Weekend’ at the Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.
Whilst a trophy is in fact up for grabs, O’Connell expressed how the current expedition out to Australia still feels like a traditional Summer Tour of old. The Ireland team are relishing in their new surroundings, ahead of their clash with the Wallabies on Saturday.
“It feels like a summer tour.” O’Connell said. “I think it’s exciting to have a competition, and we certainly want to be at the business end of it come November, but it feels like a tour, and that’s what we’re trying to make it like.
“You learn a lot about each other as a group. You develop a little bit more on tour, because you’re not going home at the weekend, you’re not catching up with your family, you’re together all the time. So, we tend to get an awful lot of work done when we’re on tours. We tend to take big strides as a team in terms of trying to improve and evolve, so even though it’s a competition, it feels like, and we’re treating it like a tour.”
With a fresh international competition adding to the rugby calendar, Ireland won’t be treating the next three-weeks as exhibition contests, as points are pivotal from the Southern Series. This asks the question of whether Ireland – or any nation for that matter – will be utilising the Summer window to debut new faces, or stick with the established internationals for the best chance to win.
Andy Farrell initially named just three uncapped players in the Nations Championship squad, with Connacht trio Billy Bohan, Sam Illo and Sean Jensen called-up for July. However, the untimely injuries to captain Caelan Doris and his Leinster teammate Tommy O’Brien, has opened the door for Ulster brothers Bryn and Zac Ward.
Despite the uncapped hopefuls in the squad, O’Connell is not guaranteeing the new-comers any minutes for the sake of resting the veterans. The former lock expressed how despite the intensity of the modern-day professional rugby calendar, his Ireland players have been appropriately managed ahead of the Summer, with no concerns regarding excessive on-field minutes.
“Game minutes aren’t massive. I the game minutes aren’t massive with a lot of the lads, actually. You know, even though a lot of them started quite late, you know, for some of the guys, their first game of the season was against New Zealand in November. So, you know, there’s a few guys that have been injury free all year that probably have a few more games under the belt, and the others, but some guys have picked up knocks throughout the year, which isn’t ideal, but it gives them a little bit of a break, a physical break, but maybe it gives them a mental break as well, because that’s probably the big thing.
O’Connell signed off by expressing how every match has plenty riding on it this Summer, and how there are no ‘soft touches’ any more. The old Summer tour exhibition format is certainly a thing of the past, with O’Connell excited to see how his side rise to the occasion of the newly minted Nations Championship.
“The games are all big games that they [Ireland players] play these days. Whether they’re internationals or big European games, or big derby games, or big URC games towards the end of the season or big games down in South Africa. There’s no soft touches anymore, so that’s the challenge for a lot of them.
“From my impression, since they’ve come in, the eagerness to work, the eagerness to train, the eagerness to do the work has been great. We trained for our first time yesterday. Sometimes you can judge how things are on the laptop in the afternoon with big numbers of boys sitting together around laptops watching training together, getting realigned.
“So, the enthusiasm is great, and I think they’re excited to be away. It’s always a change when you come abroad on tour, and you’re in a different hotel, and a different city, and something different. So, yeah, I think they’re in good shape and good form.”
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