{"id":567995,"date":"2025-11-13T16:47:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/567995\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T16:47:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:47:13","slug":"british-and-irish-lions-star-among-mass-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/567995\/","title":{"rendered":"British and Irish Lions star among mass changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has made wholesale changes to his 23-man squad to face the Wallabies, with British and Irish Lion Mack Hansen the headline call.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Farrell\u2019s men will be looking to properly kick-start their November campaign this weekend, following a tough loss against the All Blacks in Chicago, before an underwhelming win over Japan last time out.<\/p>\n

Ireland make mass changes as Mack Hansen returns<\/p>\n

Hansen returns to make his first Ireland start since the Six Nations, replacing Jamie Osborne at full-back, while James Lowe also comes into the back-three in place of Jacob Stockdale. Tommy O\u2019Brien completes the unit, keeping his spot on the right wing.<\/p>\n

There is also a fresh midfield partnership, with Robbie Henshaw and Stuart McCloskey named at 13 and 12 respectively, while Sam Prendergast gets the nod over Jack Crowley at fly-half. Jamison Gibson-Park rounds off the starting backline.<\/p>\n

Jack Conan comes back into the starting pack, slotting in at number eight. His inclusion sees skipper Caelan Doris move over to openside flanker, while Ryan Baird continues at six.<\/p>\n

Tadhg Beirne and James Ryan again get the nod in the second-row, while Tadhg Furlong, Dan Sheehan and Paddy McCarthy form the front-row. This is also McCarthy\u2019s first senior start for Ireland, after two appearances off the bench this November.<\/p>\n

Ronan Kelleher, Andrew Porter, Thomas Clarkson, Nick Timoney, Cian Prendergast, Craig Casey, Crowley and Bundee Aki form the replacements bench this weekend.<\/p>\n

Commenting on his selection, Farrell said: \u201cThere\u2019s great respect and familiarity between Ireland and Australia and Saturday is the latest renewal in a series of matches which have been pretty evenly balanced over the last number of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a good buzz around training this week and the players are excited about the challenge that awaits.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us it\u2019s about putting in an 80-plus minute performance and to try and implement our gameplan in front of what we know will be a vocal home support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Springboks team: Winners and losers as \u2018one to watch\u2019 emerges while Rassie Erasmus\u2019 \u2018gamble\u2019 reveals Rugby World Cup plan<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ireland team to face Australia in full<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/strong>: 15 Mack Hansen, 14 Tommy O\u2019Brien, 13 Robbie Henshaw, 12 Stuart McCloskey, 11 James Lowe, 10 Sam Prendergast, 9 Jamison Gibson-Park, 8 Jack Conan, 7 Caelan Doris (c), 6 Ryan Baird, 5 Tadhg Beirne, 4 James Ryan, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 2 Dan Sheehan, 1 Paddy McCarthy
Replacements<\/strong>: 16 R\u00f3nan Kelleher, 17 Andrew Porter, 18 Thomas Clarkson, 19 Nick Timoney, 20 Cian Prendergast, 21 Craig Casey, 22 Jack Crowley, 23 Bundee Aki<\/p>\n

Date<\/strong>: Saturday, November 15
Venue<\/strong>: Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Kick-off:<\/strong> 20:10 GMT (07:10 AEDT, 22:10 SAST)
Referee:<\/strong> Karl Dickson (RFU)
Assistant Referees:<\/strong> Pierre Brousset (FFR), Adam Leal (RFU)
TMO<\/strong>: Ian Tempest (RFU)
FPRO<\/strong>: Dan Jones (RFU)<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0All Blacks team: Scott Robertson reacts to England\u2019s \u2018Pom Squad\u2019 in shock selections but Rieko Ioane is still snubbed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has made wholesale changes to his 23-man squad to face the Wallabies, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[186,225,90462,678,12,4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-567995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-home-page","10":"tag-internationals","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-rugby","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115543411578031755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}