Ireland A

[neill_m]

Cian Tracey
@CianTracey1
Ireland ‘A’ will take on England ‘A’ at Ashton Gate in Bristol on Sunday, February 23 at 1pm.

That is the weekend of Round 3 of 6N - senior side travel to Cardiff.

[the spoofer]

Wohoo

[Capitán]

Excellent!

Can we presume this will be televised?

[neill_m]

Excellent!

Can we presume this will be televised?

I would presume nothing, but maybe worst case Youtube / RugbyPassTV. England A game v the Portugal XV was shown on Youtube.

[Capitán]

No shortage of game time in those two months anyway:

25/01: Leinster v Stormers

01/02: Ireland v England

09/02: Scotland v Ireland

14/02: Ospreys v Leinster

22/02: Wales v Ireland
23/02: England A v Ireland A

01/03: Leinster v Cardiff

08/03: Ireland v France

15/03: Italy v Ireland

22/03: Bulls v Leinster

29/03: Sharks v Leinster

[Capitán]

Excellent!

Can we presume this will be televised?

I would presume nothing, but maybe worst case Youtube / RugbyPassTV. England A game v the Portugal XV was shown on Youtube.

As long as we can watch it!

[cormac]

Must admit that I feel one-off A games are fairly pointless

[kff15]

No shortage of game time in those two months anyway:

25/01: Leinster v Stormers

01/02: Ireland v England

09/02: Scotland v Ireland

14/02: Ospreys v Leinster

22/02: Wales v Ireland
23/02: England A v Ireland A

01/03: Leinster v Cardiff

08/03: Ireland v France

15/03: Italy v Ireland

22/03: Bulls v Leinster

29/03: Sharks v Leinster

And also the 6 Nations U20s games in that time frame

[Capitán]

No shortage of game time in those two months anyway:

25/01: Leinster v Stormers

01/02: Ireland v England

09/02: Scotland v Ireland

14/02: Ospreys v Leinster

22/02: Wales v Ireland
23/02: England A v Ireland A

01/03: Leinster v Cardiff

08/03: Ireland v France

15/03: Italy v Ireland

22/03: Bulls v Leinster

29/03: Sharks v Leinster

And also the 6 Nations U20s games in that time frame

Yeah myself and my sofa are going to get very well acquainted

But I'm mainly thinking that it'll test the Leinster squad more than the last couple seasons. This year we had a gap weekend before the 6N started and then Zebre immediately after (before 3 home games), whereas there'll be no gap weekend this time, add an Ireland A game to the 2 Leinster games during the tournament, and then we'll follow it up by sending the non-internationals to SA.

We had 19 players in the squad this year and will presumably contribute similar numbers next time. A lot (/most) of those players won't feature at all versus the Stormers, Ospreys, Cardiff, Bulls, and Sharks. The incentive to release players during the tournament window will also be lower if there's an Ireland A game to give the fringe guys a run.

[Capitán]

If you consider all the below to be one season it's a huge amount of opportunities for players outside of their clubs. How many lads will Easterby have worked with by the time this is over:

Emerging Ireland - Autumn Internationals - 6 Nations - Ireland A - Summer Tour to Georgia and Romania

[Keith]

Must admit that I feel one-off A games are fairly pointless

They should be half decent money spinners, but yeah the games are usually atrocious to be brtually honest.

In saying that I'll be no doubt watching it.

[sunshiner1]

Looking forward to this. Farrell has a pretty good record for bringing people through and it will give a number of players a chance to put there hands up.

[ronk]

Must admit that I feel one-off A games are fairly pointless

In fairness England are the 6N team who still want A games. No one else does.

So a lot of it comes from their eagerness to host a game.

One change we might see is that it could reduce the number of players released back to their provinces if they're not making Ireland 23s.

[hugonaut]

Must admit that I feel one-off A games are fairly pointless

I agree. It's two scratch teams playing each other and then going their separate ways. If a guy has a good game it's nice for them, but it isn't conclusive. It's a lower standard than lots of club games. The players have trained together twice or three times and there's very little cohesion in units or nuance in the gameplan.

[ronk]

Player/Club/Province/Test Caps –

15. Michael Lowry (Banbridge/Ulster) 1
14. Jimmy O’Brien (Naas/Leinster) *
13. Jamie Osborne (Naas/Leinster) *
12. James Hume (Banbridge/Ulster) 3
11. Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster) 35
10. Ciaran Frawley (Skerries/Leinster) *
9. Craig Casey (Shannon/Munster) (capt) 5
1. Jeremy Loughman (Garryowen/Munster) *
2. Dave Heffernan (Buccaneers/Connacht) 7
3. Tom O’Toole (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 3 caps
4. Joe McCarthy (Dublin University/Leinster) *
5. Gavin Thornbury (Connacht) *
6. Cian Prendergast (Connacht) *
7. Nick Timoney (Banbridge/Ulster) 2
8. Gavin Coombes (Young Munster/Munster) 2

Replacements:

16. Diarmuid Barron (Garryowen/Munster) *
17. Dave Kilcoyne (UL Bohemians/Munster) 48
18. Martin Moore (Ulster) 10
19. Ross Molony (UCD/Leinster) *
20. Max Deegan (Lansdowne/Leinster) 1
21. Caolin Blade (Galwegians/Connacht) 1
22. Jack Crowley (Cork Constitution/Munster) *
23. Calvin Nash (Young Munster/Munster) *

* Denotes uncapped player at Test level

The last A game was pretty unsuccessful in many ways. But 6 of the 7 uncapped starters have since been capped. Plus 2 of the 4 subs.

Even where lessons were learned about who was not ready to make a step up, it was better to learn them then.

Heffernan and Blade were called up mid SA tour, having that familiarity in the system is useful in situations like that.

An A series would be better, but that's not an option and no one tracks who wins the A tournaments anyway.

I might get to watch some more rugby, which is a good thing. If I was doing Cardiff this year it would be a great boost to the weekend.