Ireland team: Winners and losers as Andy Farrell backs ‘forgotten’ wide man’s renaissance and rookie’s ‘eye-catching exploits’

Following the announcement of Andy Farrell’s Ireland team to face New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland in round three of the Nations Championship, here are our winners and losers.

The Irish head coach has made wholesale changes yet again, making nine from the team that started last weekend’s round two 36-20 win over Japan in Newcastle.

However, scratch the surface of this latest Ireland rotation and you will find the consistency in Farrell’s selection. 13 of the players who began the last-gasp round one win over Australia in Sydney will run out versus the All Blacks, while seven of the eight subs from that 33-31 victory have also been retained.

It’s a situation that has given us plenty to unpack and, without further ado, here are our winners and losers from Farrell’s selection to face New Zealand.

Winners

Jimmy O’Brien

Ireland’s Southern Series has produced an unexpected renaissance for the 29-year-old. He was a fringe player at Leinster this past season, missing out on selection for both the Champions Cup and United Rugby Championship finals, and he had only won three Test caps in the years since appearing off the bench in the 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter-final versus New Zealand.

However, he is now very much a man in the moment, the 11th-hour hamstring injury to the originally selected Robert Baloucoune crowbarring O’Brien into the starting line-up versus Australia. He retained that right winger jersey versus the Japanese but now switches to left wing to accommodate the fit-again Baloucoune’s return and squeezes out Jamie Osborne from the team. That’s a massive individual triumph for the largely forgotten wide man.

Robert Baloucoune

The Ulster wingman can fully empathise with O’Brien when it comes to wilderness years on the Test scrapheap. Before February, he hadn’t featured since 2022, but three tries and getting crowned 2026 BKT Rising Player in the Six Nations at the age of 28 was quite the comeback for someone who had fallen off the radar.

When Farrell named his team to play the Wallabies, Baloucoune was stitched in to run out in the No.14 shirt, but injury scuppered that plan. However, he is now back fit and raring to go in what will be the biggest outing of his international career – a chance to test himself against the All Blacks in their Eden Park fortress.

Sean Jansen

Last weekend’s clash with Japan heralded a debut cap for the 27-year-old New Zealander, who was born in Dunedin but qualifies for Ireland through grandparents on his mother’s side hailing from Monasterevin and Belfast. As evident in the slow-burning Test careers of O’Brien and Baloucoune, it’s a tricky thing for a newcomer to make a lasting impression under Farrell – so many newbies who get a shot only get fleeting exposure before getting put back on the shelf.

Jansen, however, caught his head coach’s eye with his round two debut exploits. A dozen carries and 13 tackles highlighted his effectiveness on both sides of the ball in a maiden run capped by a second half try. It’s an effort now rewarded by a spot on the bench against the All Blacks, the national team he grew up watching at close hand before deciding to leave New Zealand in 2022 to join Leicester and see where his career could take him.

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Tadhg Beirne

It would have been a sobering experience for the Munster talisman to have been deemed only good enough for a bench spot when Ireland took on the Wallabies at the start of their July tour. It was just 11 months ago in Australia that he was voted the official British and Irish Lions player of the series, but he took one for the team following an injury-hit finish to the domestic season by benching in Sydney, and he now reaps the reward.

Beirne was restored to the starting XV last week against the Japanese, but he now moves from second row to blindside for an assignment versus the All Blacks where there will be plenty of individual motivation. The previous Ireland-New Zealand match was just three minutes old in Chicago last November when he was red-carded for a collision with Beauden Barrett. The card was ultimately rescinded at a disciplinary hearing, but that was a useless U-turn given the Irish had already lost the match 26-13. Saturday is definitely time to make amends.

Tom O’Toole

It continues to be an amazing year for the 27-year-old prop, whose Test career before that had stalled. Apart from one bench cameo against Fiji in 2004, it was at tighthead where he had been previously considered, but Ireland’s injury crisis at loosehead burst ajar the position.

There were two settling-in runs off the bench before March starts versus Wales and Scotland, a run of selection that has continued in the southern hemisphere where he goes into this Saturday’s match as one of five players – along with O’Brien, Stuart McCloskey, James Ryan and Jack Conan – chosen to start all three tour matches. Surviving and thriving against the All Blacks at scrum time is the endorsement now needed to rubber stamp all this development.

Sam Prendergast

The 23-year-old isn’t this week’s major selection winner. Ciaran Frawley didn’t deliver the performance he needed in the No.10 shirt against the Japanese, while the selection head-to-head between Prendergast and Harry Byrne is very different from the more even situation at Leinster under Leo Cullen. Still, it would have been nice for Prendergast to learn Test coach Farrell has his back heading into this New Zealand game.

Prendergast was a sub behind Jack Crowley the last time the teams met and it’s safe to say his career has experienced a roller coaster journey in the eight months since then. His Ireland rehabilitation versus Australia had plenty of detractors, especially those concerned by his tackling and disappointed by the intercept pass that gave the Wallabies a try. However, he demonstrated a resilience in that match to go on and kick the winning conversion, and Saturday is now an opportunity to take this redemption onto the next level.

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James Ryan

The outlook was bleak for the experienced second-row last November when he was red-carded for his breakdown cheap shot versus South Africa, but he returned in the spring with a revitalised pep in his step when he got back to the basics that make him such an excellent player for Ireland.

There was no more of the fake hard man stuff, just honest rugby endeavour that could only be admired, and the 29-year-old has continued that favourable, souped-up contribution down south, leaving him set for a third consecutive tour start. How he goes at Eden Park will be crucial to Ireland’s chances of infiltrating a fortress venue where the All Blacks haven’t lost since 1994.

Stuart McCloskey

It’s no surprise at all to see the 33-year-old named again in the No.12 jersey; ever since getting a proper chance under Farrell, he has played with the authority of a 100-cap veteran, not someone starved of selection, which had been the case for most of his career. His offloading was never something Joe Schmidt took a shine to, and it was similar for quite some time under Farrell.

However, that was then. Now, McCloskey is a bulwark in this Irish team, and his sublime performances have continued to get ever better the more he plays and have not plateaued. Given the concerns over the effectiveness of Prendergast’s tackling, his presence in the next channel was vital against the Wallabies, and that protection will be even more important versus the higher-tempo All Blacks.

Sydney bench

Farrell was always going to revert as much as possible to his starting line-up versus the Wallabies, but his bench selection for this weekend’s fixture in Auckland is a feather in the cap for those who stepped into the line of fire in Sydney and delivered. That round one fixture was a match that Ireland could well have lost but for the unbridled level of energy brought onto the field by the replacements, including the try-scoring Thomas Clarkson.

Seven of those eight subs have been retained in that role to play New Zealand, the only change seeing Jansen take over the spot vacated by the promoted Beirne. The selection – a five/three forwards/backs split – is a vindication of what was delivered in Australia when the outcome was in the hopper, and Farrell will be banking on more of the same materialising when the time comes to unload the back-up at Eden Park.

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Losers

Jamie Osborne

This is an exclusion that certainly wasn’t on the cards, but this Farrell regular has now paid the price for his backline versatility rather than being allowed to have a run in the team in one position. The 24-year-old, a breakthrough star at full-back in South Africa in 2024 when Hugo Keenan headed away on his Olympic adventure, was a left-wing starter versus Australia having finished the domestic season with Leinster as an inside centre pick.

He was switched to full-back last weekend versus the Japanese but instead of reverting to the wing berth he occupied in Sydney, Osborne has been jettisoned. This omission is to accommodate the return of the fit-again Baloucoune and the retention of O’Brien, someone who would have been viewed pre-tour as being miles behind what the positionally flexible Osborne has to offer. It looks a big call and he woundingly came out the wrong side of it.

Cian Prendergast

The Connacht skipper is now caught up in a cycle of getting a big chance and then disappearing from the team sheet. It happened last February after selection to open versus the French, going on to become surplus to requirement in the Six Nations. That same pattern has now emerged on tour, with a try-scoring start versus Australia getting deemed not good enough for him to be in the team to play New Zealand having been rested last weekend versus the Japanese.

With Beirne understandably upgraded to a starting role, the 26-year-old would have been confident of taking the vacant bench spot. Instead, he has been usurped by Jansen, his provincial colleague, a development that is surely a frustration as he would have wanted to build on what he had shown in Sydney.

Bundee Aki

The 2023 World Rugby player of the year nominee has certainly not been forgotten by head coach Farrell, as Auckland will be the third successive Saturday Aki has been named at the Ireland No.23. That’s a selection which underlines the continued value of the 35-year-old to the set-up despite his omission earlier this year from the squad before the confirmation of a suspension for referee verbal abuse playing for Connacht.

On the other hand, though, his inability to break back into the starting XV is a sign of how much McCloskey is now ahead in Farrell’s midfield thoughts. For a long time, the centre spots were occupied by Aki, Robbie Henshaw and Garry Ringrose, and no one else was allowed a look-in. However, McCloskey with Ringrose is now clearly Farrell’s preferred cup of tea. While Aki won’t vent and sap the energy behind the scenes, privately he will be annoyed that he couldn’t force his way back into the starting shirt.

Harry Byrne

Two months ago, with Leinster sprucing themselves up for their latest Champions Cup final appearance, few would have predicted that the then-struggling Prendergast would turn the tables on his provincial colleague and retake the Ireland No.10 jersey. Prendergast was way off the pace at Leinster, resulting in Byrne starting against Bordeaux, but that showpiece final didn’t go the 27-year-old’s way and this handbrake on situation has continued into the Ireland tour.

With Prendergast chosen to start in Auckland and Frawley nominated as the bench back-up, the sidelined Byrne will reflect on this trip very much as a missed opportunity. Just 21 minutes off the bench versus Japan will be his disappointing lot on a tour where, if things had gone better with Leinster in Europe, he could have been in pole position given the injury-enforced absence of Crowley. Instead, it’s a case of ifs, buts and maybes.

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