{"id":396298,"date":"2026-03-21T08:15:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/396298\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T08:15:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T08:15:16","slug":"ruaidhri-oconnor-andy-farrells-depth-chart-key-areas-still-looking-a-little-light-as-ireland-build-towards-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/396298\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor \u2013 Andy Farrell\u2019s depth chart: key areas still looking a little light as Ireland build towards 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">There\u2019s a lack of consistency across the board but head coach will be comfortable with what he has as he hones in on Australia\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ireland head coach Andy Farrell (centre) with, clockwise from top left, Tom O'Toole, Robert Baloucoune, Caelan Doris, Edwin Edogbo, Bryn Ward, Craig Casey.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IS 2103 Depth Chart.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Ireland head coach Andy Farrell (centre) with, clockwise from top left, Tom O&#8217;Toole, Robert Baloucoune, Caelan Doris, Edwin Edogbo, Bryn Ward, Craig Casey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Squad depth is an obsession in rugby and perhaps it shouldn\u2019t be a surprise given how confrontational and dangerous the sport is.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Compared to other top nations like South Africa, France, England and New Zealand, Ireland is at a disadvantage when it comes to the number of top-end players and the head coach is always working from a small base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lack of consistency across the board but head coach will be comfortable with what he has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[70904,53479,23199,18,19,17,12861,12311,4934,132,133886,23200],"class_list":{"0":"post-396298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andy-farrell","9":"tag-caelan-doris","10":"tag-connacht-rugby","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-leinster-rugby","15":"tag-munster-rugby","16":"tag-ruaidhri-oconnor","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-tadhg-furlong","19":"tag-ulster-rugby"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116266174072454103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}