Lowe Ruled Out As Easterby Says ‘We’ll Need To Be Better Again Next Week’

Lowe’s second successive appearance of the 2026 Championship came to a premature end when he pulled up with the injury in the 18th minute at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, with Ireland leading 3-0 at the time.

The 33-year-old winger, who also started against New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa in November, will miss the concluding matches of the Six Nations at home to Wales, on Friday week, and Scotland in the final round on Saturday, March 14.

Speaking about Lowe’s injury after today’s open training session at the Aviva Stadium, assistant coach Simon Easterby said: “He’s struggling. I think he is due to see someone today, just a specialist.

“I would have thought they’ll make a call on it over the next few days, but you could see when he tried to take off that he did something nasty.

“Lowey’s pretty tough. He was getting up and down on the sideline (at Twickenham) when things were going well for us, and he was part of the cheerleading group on the sideline. You could see what it meant to him.”

Ireland’s victories over England in both the Senior and Under-20 Men’s Six Nations last weekend provided Irish Rugby with a timely lift, just a fortnight on from heavy defeats to their French counterparts by 22 and 29 points, respectively.

The response of the Irish fans in both Bath and London was telling, and the players from both squads, led by head coaches Andy Farrell and Andrew Browne, got a further boost from the assembled crowd when they trained against each other at the home of Irish Rugby earlier today.

Easterby explained that the Ireland U-20s’ stirring 31-21 defeat of England at the Rec helped to spur the senior side on to make it a memorable double in Twickenham. The respect was obvious when both sets of players were on the pitch together, before meeting the supporters afterwards.

“These days are always important. I think the players enjoy them. The 20s, they set the tone last Friday night in Bath, and I genuinely think that the group were motivated by that performance, them beating England.

“You know, we saw today the way they trained as well against us was excellent. These days are really important. You don’t get the chance to do this very often.

“When we do do it, I think the players genuinely enjoy it and they enjoy seeing some of the younger fans get an opportunity to meet the players. It’s a really nice day where fans and players get the chance to mix a little bit.”

With back-to-back wins, the two Ireland teams have both played themselves back into Championship contention. Farrell’s men are now third in the table, with a six-point gap to unbeaten France, and Browne’s youngsters sit second in the standings, five points behind the French U-20s.

Lowe was the only player retained in Farrell’s group who did not train at the open session, as a two-day mini camp in Dublin kept the momentum high following the five-try performance against England, and helped to lay the groundwork for next week’s clash with bottom side Wales.

Despite struggling for results with 24 losses in 26 Tests, Wales produced a much-improved display against Scotland in Cardiff in round 2. Their captain Dewi Lake admitted it was ‘gut-wrenching’ to lose 26-23 in the end, having ‘applied pressure and attacked them’ to lead 20-5 and then 23-12.

It was the first time that they had led a game at half-time during Steve Tandy’s first year in charge. Wales were also in front against Ireland after the opening 40 minutes at the Principality Stadium twelve months ago, before the visitors went on to clinch the Triple Crown with a 27-18 triumph.

Easterby was Ireland’s interim head coach at the time, and has close ties with Welsh rugby as he played for and coached the Scarlets and lives in Cowbridge with his wife Sarra, daughter of former Wales and British & Irish Lions winger Elgan Rees, and their two children.

“I guess one result against England in Twickenham, it doesn’t give us the right to sit back and reflect and enjoy that, because you know you’ve got another game coming up against Wales who performed really well against Scotland.

“So, our philosophy has always been to be really diligent around the fundamentals in our game and make sure that we keep honing those skills and keep mastering those skills in training to allow us to keep performing, and we’ll need to get better again next week.

“It’s a different game, it’s a different team that we’re playing against. They (Wales) have got different skillsets and they’ve got different threats to England. We need to make sure we stay on top of that,” he added.

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