Springboks legend compares Andy Farrell to Eddie Jones as Ireland reach the ‘end of an era’

Jean de Villiers has likened Andy Farrell to Eddie Jones, claiming the Ireland head coach is not successfully bringing through the country’s talented young players to replace their outgoing stars.

The Irish have been one of the best sides in the world over the past few years and stood atop the World Rugby rankings heading into the 2023 Rugby World Cup.

They had a stable core of players that had been together for a few years going into that tournament. Of the side that faced the All Blacks in the quarter-finals, only Joe McCarthy and Jack Crowley were under the age of 25, while 13 of the 23 were 30 or over.

No post-World Cup overhaul

In the subsequent Six Nations Championship, Farrell decided against having a massive overhaul with no uncapped players named in the wider training squad.

Since then, there is a suggestion that the Ireland boss is starting to look to the future with Tom Clarkson and Sam Prendergast handed debuts against Argentina, but whether that proves successful remains to be seen.

It is a very different approach to Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus, who is constantly rotating and looking to build squad depth.

“We’re kind of witnessing an end of an era with Ireland with those guys retiring. We’re seeing now with Farrell and we saw the same with Eddie Jones, the inability to introduce young players to that squad,” De Villiers said on the Boks Office podcast.

“Whereas Rassie on the other side, we’ve had 50 players that have played for the Boks this year, which is just incredible.”

Regulars on the podcast, De Villiers and Schalk Burger, were joined by current Springbok and former Ulster prop Steven Kitshoff, who gave his thoughts on Ireland’s youth development.

“They’ve probably got a core group of 30 players they’re trying to back,” Kitshoff said. “In saying that, if you look at Leinster and how they’re actually blooding a lot of young guys, they’re still actually doing extremely well.

“Maybe in the next two years you will see a lot of those guys starting to feature more for Ireland as a rebuild, but it feels like Farrell doesn’t back the youngsters yet.”

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Leinster bias

The national team is stacked with Leinster players, while it is perhaps not a coincidence that the two debutants in the Argentina encounter also came from that province.

“So much of their talent pool is in Dublin with Leinster and when the internationals are gone, those guys get exposure, but you almost want them playing in the big games when the internationals are back and they’re not doing that,” De Villiers added.

Some fans have claimed that players from other provinces have to work much harder to receive international recognition and Burger believes that could prove to be an issue, especially if Farrell continues to base his team around the Leinster core.

“It can definitely stunt your development by only having one avenue and that’s going through Dublin,” he said. “What happens to the other franchises?

“They’re in danger, but they will notice this.”

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