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Easterby Relishing Ireland’s Challenge To ‘Stay Ahead Of The Pack’

Easterby Relishing Ireland’s Challenge To ‘Stay Ahead Of The Pack’

Simon Easterby was part of Guinness Men's Six Nations title-winning coaching teams under both Joe Schmidt and Andy Farrell ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Simon Easterby’s playing career was closely entwined with the Guinness Men’s Six Nations. Now 25 years on from that memorable debut against Scotland, he takes interim charge of Ireland for the upcoming Championship.

Easterby spoke about the honour and excitement he feels stepping into the role at the Six Nations launch in Rome, the traditional get-together for the coaches and captains in front of the media ahead of the start of the tournament.

Saturday week’s opening encounter with England at the Aviva Stadium (kick-off 4.45pm) was a big talking point, a fixture that certainly narrows the focus for an Ireland squad with a new leader while Andy Farrell is away on British & Irish Lions duty.

With the group still having plenty of experience both on the pitch and in the coaches’ box, Easterby said: “I don’t think there is a huge change other than obviously ‘Faz’ not being with us. But we have had consistency of selection this time around.

“We have got good youngsters coming in, we brought them in during the autumn, and there is a lot of experience in the group as well.

“The challenge is to stay ahead of the pack and prepare as well as we can and try and play as well as we can when it comes to England in 10 days’ time.”

His familiarity as a coach is an obvious plus given he has been part of the Ireland set-up since 2014, and his 36-player squad for the Six Nations boasts a total of 1475 international caps – 960 in the forwards and 515 in the backs.

Test centurions Cian Healy, Conor Murray, and Peter O’Mahony, last year’s winning captain, account for a good chunk of that, but there are also nine others with over 50 caps, and current skipper Caelan Doris leads a handful of players that are closing in on the half-century.

It is a strong base to work off for a title defence, and when you add in some emerging young talent, and the carrot of a historic Six Nations three in-a-row, you can understand why there is a huge sense of anticipation about what will unfold over the coming weeks.

Taking it all in at his first Six Nations launch as he steps into Farrell’s shoes, Easterby said: “Listen, it’s an incredible setting and I’m incredibly honoured to be in this position.

“I guess trying to embrace everything, trying to build continuity on everything we’ve done before. Because the competition is so finely balanced in terms of each game, the momentum you can create.

“I’m hugely excited about the group of players we’ve got to work with, the coaches, and the continuity in selection. There’s not a lot of change from the autumn, not a lot of change from the last Six Nations.

But the players are a year older, they’ve got a year’s more experience for the ones who haven’t been around that long.

“They’re also hugely motivated to go on and keep being successful and staying ahead of the other teams. Every team in this competition will believe they can win it, and rightly so.

“There are so many good teams in it. It’s about on the day, and I guess part of winning the Six Nations is about momentum and what has gone before doesn’t account for huge amounts.”

The recent past has brought great Six Nations success for the Ireland Men’s team, lifting the trophy twice in as many years and securing their fourth ever Grand Slam in 2023.

It marks them out as the team to beat, and the two sides that finished closest to them in 2024, England and France, will both be hosted in Dublin this time around. Steve Borthwick’s men are first up on February 1, and les Bleus face a penultimate round trip on March 8.

Easterby has previous head coach experience having been in charge of the Scarlets between 2012 and 2014, and also led the successful Emerging Ireland tours to South Africa in both 2022 and 2024.

October’s three-match Emerging Ireland campaign in Bloemfontein saw Easterby and fellow coaches Paul O’Connell, Andrew Goodman, and John Fogarty get to work with a young squad, building stronger connections across the board and getting to train and play to the national team’s tactical and technical approach.

The former Ireland and British & Irish Lions flanker emphasised how valuable a tour like that is for both the coaching staff and the players. The recently-capped Sam Prendergast and Cormac Izuchukwu are both in the Six Nations squad, along with Hugh Cooney as a development player.

“I’ve taken a young team, the Emerging Ireland team, to South Africa. We’ve done that twice over the last couple of years and that’s been beneficial for us as a coaching group,” he admitted.

“It’s meant that other coaches in the system have had an opportunity to lead and I’m one of those myself. So that’s been a really useful exercise and I get to know some of the younger players in the system as well, which has helped.”

Easterby assembled his Six Nations squad at the IRFU High Performance Centre on Monday morning, and they are bound for Portugal today to begin their traditional pre-tournament training camp in Quinta do Lago.

Having made a losing start to the Autumn Nations Series, going down 23-13 to New Zealand, before responding with three wins on the trot, the reigning Six Nations champions know there are some key areas of their game for improvement heading into the England clash.

Speaking about the task ahead as they look to regain their best form, he insisted: “I think there’s a genuine internal motivation to do that and I think that’s something that we’ve got to make sure that we keep driving as coaches.

“Keep pushing the lads to do what we do really well, but keep evolving as well and keep adding layers to our game because every team will try and improve.

“Over the course of that couple of months since November, every team will feel like they’ve worked on a way to nullify you and improve their own game. We’re no different and it’s a really exciting prospect.”