As Johnny Sexton hung up his boots following the 2023 Rugby World Cup, Ireland have entered a new chapter for the 2024 Six Nations. Andy Farrell has to decide who his new starting fly half will be, with Munster’s Jack Crowley emerging as a leading candidate.
Throughout last Autumn’s World Cup, Crowley contested against Ross Byrne for the place of Sexton’s understudy. A recent arm injury saw Byrne take time out for surgery, with the Leinsterman not returning to the squad for the Six Nations. Ireland begin their tournament this Friday, in what could play out to be the deciding match of the entire competition.
The reigning Grand Slam holders head over to Paris, where they take on France for a blockbuster of a Six Nations opener. Fabien Galthie’s men will be without their outstanding halfback Antoine Dupont, as the scrum-half misses the tournament in-line with his Olympic Sevens preparations for the 2024 Paris Games. Ireland legend Keith Wood believes that Crowley is the best option to be ‘Johnny Sexton’s successor’, as he gears up to take the reigns against Les Bleus this Friday evening.
Speaking to BoyleSports, who offer the latest Six Nations betting, Wood ran down the mostly injured options for the Irish 10 jersey:
“Jack Crowley is Johnny Sexton’s successor. You have the two Byrne brothers, Ross and Harry and you have Ciaran Frawley and Sam Prendergast .
“The Byrneses and Frawley all have injury problems. Crowley is playing well. He is hard and robust and he is a very interesting fly half. I would have him there. I think we will see Prendergast play during the Six Nations but it is very early for him. He is an outrageous talent at Ten. He is incredibly unflappable.”
Wood then turned his attention to Ireland head coach Andy Farrell, who has also accepted the tall order of leading the British & Irish Lions on tour to Australia in 2025. Farrell took over the role from Wales head coach Warren Gatland, with the New Zealander also picking out Farrell as his next-in-line.
The former Saracen ended his playing career in 2009, and quickly turned his attention to coaching. He promptly took up the head coach role with the North London club, before an assistant coach stint with the England national squad, and a defence coach run with the 2013 British & Irish Lions. Wood was apart of an earlier Lions squad that toured ‘down under’ in 2001, and he spoke about how Farrell understands what it means to be apart of that group.
“Andy Farrell is class appointment, he gets the Lions. I think he gets high performance. He is a believer in people. I’d like for him to have gone further in the World Cup with Ireland (quarter-final exit). And I think he will have learned an awful lot from that.
“You know, when your standard is to win it, it’s a failure if you don’t. I think he would be smarting. I think he might have done a few things differently. But that’s the joy of sports is you get another day to learn from your mistakes. It’s the one where it becomes really hard when guys don’t get a chance to learn from their mistakes.
“I think Andy consistently surrounds himself with guys who challenge him and who have got very good rugby union nous.”
“Farrell is an excellent man manager. That’s a really big deal. If you want to look for comparisons, Andy has Lions history as an assistant coach. So that’s a really good thing in his back pocket. He has a history of high performance, that’s a really good thing. He’s a history of leading teams, that’s a good thing.”
When Wood made his Lions debut with the class of ’97, he was under the coaching guise Sir Ian McGeechan and Jim Telfer. Wood certainly took valuable teachings from McGeechan, as he regards the Scotsman amongst the best rugby coaches, when dealing with world class internationals. Wood went on to discuss the coach-turned-pundit, and backed his former Lions mentor from his days on tour in South Africa.
“I have made a comment about Geech (Sir Ian McGeechan) which sometimes gets criticised. But I stand by it. I think Geech is the best coach of world class players I’ve ever seen.
“It is where I think the Lions has to be. I’m not entirely sure that the Lions have to be pragmatic to win a series, by kicking every ball. For me that is not what the Lions is about.
“Geech’s thing was setting out his stall, ‘This is our philosophy, this is what we believe in, this is what we want you to be able to think and do. Let’s heighten your skills together as a group.’
“You’re actually picked as a Lion because you’re able to think your way around the game, and you have the skills to be able to do it, and off you go. Because then you get an opportunity to see players perform with full freedom, being able to make a decision and expecting another player who’s very, very good to be able to pick that line or understand what you’re going to do without having it be to be a call.
“And the best coaches on the ‘97 Lions tour were the players. Jim Telfer (The forwards’ coach) was regimented and driven, and built a core of repetitive skills.
“That is an absolute essential foundation for a pack of forwards. I still think technically he was the best I’ve come across. He was just incredible.
“But it’s what you’re learning from the other players, the nuances of the other players. That’s the joy of the Lions. Playing for the Lions is not going and saying, ‘This is the game plan. You’re doing this. And if you don’t fit into this, you’re not playing.’
“I was chatting with a New Zealander who studies sports psychology the other day about the Lions. We went back to the Lions tour of 1959 and my Dad was on that tour to New Zealand.
“The ethos was to entertain. It’s interesting that his view is that after that tour New Zealand rugby started changing how they were going about things because of that.”