Ireland squad: Winners and losers as Paul O’Connell backs ‘real leader with a strong personality’ to lead a Leinster-dominated selection
Interim Ireland boss Paul O'Connell
Interim Ireland head coach Paul O’Connell has included 11 uncapped players in his squad of 32 for next month’s two-game tour to Georgia and Portugal.
Here are Planet Rugby’s winners and losers from Wednesday afternoon’s announcement from Dublin:
WINNERS
Leinster
It says much about the depth that exists at Leinster that they can dominate this Ireland squad selection despite having 12 of their players set to tour with the British and Irish Lions and seasoned internationals Caelan Doris and Robbie Henshaw sidelined through injury.
O’Connell has included a dozen Leinster players, a representation that comfortably eclipses the contribution of seven from Munster, seven from Ulster and six from Connacht. Their uncapped contingent amounts to just three – one less than Connacht’s four, the same as Munster and two more than Ulster’s one.
The 27-year-old Tommy O’Brien is a seasoned provincial player who impressed in last month’s Champions Cup semi-final versus Northampton, so his promotion is no surprise. The inclusions of prop Paddy McCarthy and hooker Stephen Smyth is very much an eye to the future, though, at both provincial and international levels.
Between them, this unheralded duo have just six United Rugby Championship appearances this term, so their selection to tour with Ireland is very much a deep dive into the Leinster depth chart. We will have to wait to see if this rookie pair with age-grade CVs can sink or swim, but their selection by Ireland just reinforces how dominant the Leinster system is compared to the other three provinces.
Craig Casey
With the legendary Conor Murray now exiting the Irish system at the age of 36 for an experience abroad, the time is ripe for the 26-year-old Casey to finally come of age and take his career onto a new level. The Munster No. 9 shirt became Casey’s in recent seasons.
However, Murray continued to be a regular Ireland squad pick until finally bowing out at the end of the recent Six Nations. That was a campaign that Casey missed due to a knee injury, and there will be much interest in whether a player who has more Test appearances as a sub than as a starter can take full advantage of the golden opportunity he has now been given.
Not only is he in pole position to start both tour matches at scrum-half in the absence of Lions pick Jamison Gibson-Park and the exiting Murray, Casey has also been given the Ireland squad captaincy. The July 5 game away to Georgia in Tbilisi has him lined up to become the 112th Ireland captain since 1875.
O’Connell has described Casey as “a real leader with a strong personality”. That description bodes well, as it will be intriguing to see how the new skipper manages the responsibility at Test level.
Our lads selected for the Ireland Men’s Squad! 🤝
Interim Ireland Men’s Head Coach Paul O’Connell has named a 32-man squad for the two-Test Summer tour of Georgia (5th July) & Portugal (12th July).
Craig Casey is named as captain, congratulations 👏#SUAF ☘️
— Munster Rugby (@Munsterrugby) June 4, 2025
Training panellists
The tactic of bringing along additional players can be an awkward one. Youngsters can quickly tire of tackle bag and gofer duties if their head isn’t in the right place, but Ireland have persisted with this ploy, and its success can be seen in the promotion of Ben Murphy into the squad.
A son of Ulster coach Richie, the 24-year-old decided to exit Leinster last summer to try his luck at Connacht after making little or no headway under Leo Cullen. That decision has been generously vindicated as impressive winter form with the Galway-based side resulted in the scrum-half being named by Simon Easterby, the then-interim Ireland boss, as one of four training panellists in January ahead of the Six Nations.
Now, having brightly finished his season with Connacht, he has been elevated into the main Ireland squad, a promotion that highlights the usefulness of the training panellists idea. James McNabney, who joined Murphy in the January quartet, is back for another training involvement.
He is in a group of three on this occasion, along with Jude Postlethwaite and Zac Ward, the Ireland sevens Olympian who was recruited on a trial basis by Ulster only last August.
A son of Andy, the Ireland back row at the turn of the millennium, Ward has flourished, and his tour inclusion is very much at odds with the IRFU’s recent binning of the men’s sevens team, where it was claimed not enough players are developed to make it at XVs.
LOSERS
Veteran Ulster duo
With Ireland’s squad resources stretched by them embarking on a summer tour while 15 players are touring Australia with the British and Irish Lions, you’d imagine that every attempt would be made to involve seasoned campaigners so that the squad visiting Tbilisi and Lisbon on successive July Saturdays wouldn’t be too inexperienced.
However, O’Connell was prepared to take a risk by telling veteran Ulster duo Iain Henderson and Rob Herring they were surplus to requirements for the upcoming European tour. Both were involved in the recent Six Nations with Easterby at the helm.
The 33-year-old Henderson played 19 minutes of the campaign-opening win over England while the 35-year-old Herring featured for 11 minutes in the Grand Slam-ending loss to France. Rather than bring them along and have their experience to hand to help the numerous rookies settle into the rhythm of Test rugby, it was felt best that they “were not considered for selection to allow them to focus on a full pre-season programme”.
Is that code for them slipping far down the pecking order or a genuine ‘have a rest, lads, and we’ll see you in November’ message? Only time can tell.
Tom Farrell
It was Wednesday morning when the Munster midfielder was named in the United Rugby Championship Elite XV for the 2024/25 season, but that good news disappointingly didn’t translate into a Test squad call-up some hours later for the in-form outside centre.
With Ireland’s regular three midfielders – Lions duo Bundee Aki and Garry Ringrose, and the injured Robbie Henshaw – unavailable, there would have been optimism that the 31-year-old Farrell, who was also voted URC playmaker of the season, could finally get an international look-in.
However, interim boss O’Connell opted against bringing the Test-level rookie into a squad where inside centre Stuart McCloskey is the most experienced midfielder chosen to tour along with the versatile Jamie Osborne. Instead, Connacht’s Hugh Gavin, who turned 21 last January, was the uncapped outside centre called up.
Caolin Blade
Rugby can be a cruel sport. It was last year’s Ireland tour where Connacht No. 9 Blade revelled in the career highlight that was providing the pass for Ciaran Frawley to drop the goal that dramatically defeated South Africa in Durban. He had only ever been a fringe squad pick under Andy Farrell, but he was still in the plans when Easterby named his 2025 Six Nations squad, including him as one of the 36 who flew out to Portugal for the pre-tournament warm-weather camp.
However, the 31-year-old’s name was nowhere to be seen when O’Connell named the latest Ireland squad on Wednesday. It’s been a difficult season at Connacht for Blade where Murphy – as mentioned above in the training panellists section – has jumped up through the ranks.
His cause wasn’t helped by the consolidation of Nathan Doak’s credentials at Ulster. A son of Ireland U20s boss Neil, O’Connell named him as the third scrum-half for the upcoming tour, leaving Blade to reflect that a year certainly is a long time in rugby.