The Breakdown | Farrell’s return boosts Ireland for Autumn Nations Series with plenty at stake

One minute we’re winding the clocks back an hour, the next we’re hurtling forwards into rugby union’s maddest month. Welcome to the whistle-stop world of the Autumn Nations Series, which, this year, has arrived as abruptly as a cat burglar in the Louvre. Sides that take time to settle into familiar old routines are about to experience a short, sharp shock.

Of course there is the flip side: the main southern hemisphere powers have been smashing away at each other for weeks and certain individuals must be slightly weary. In terms of cohesion and collective readiness to pick up where they left off last time out, however, there is barely a comparison.

Which is why there will be a certain nervousness in one or two union offices in Dublin and Twickenham. Organising extra high-profile Tests outside the official window in a British & Irish Lions year to balance the books comes with a health warning. If your national team don’t immediately hit the November turf running any semblance of feelgood factor can dissolve rapidly.

Not least, potentially, in Ireland. This week should be all about basking in former glories as they prepare to take on New Zealand in Chicago. Ah, Chicago. What a sweet home from home it was nine years ago when, for the first time in 111 years of tackling New Zealand, the boys in green beat the All Blacks. A packed Soldier Field, standing tall opposite the haka in an iconic figure-of-eight formation to honour Anthony “Axel” Foley; the memories remain indelible.

Go out and do it again and that legend will be suitably burnished. Huff and puff against an All Black side beaten 43-10 at home by South Africa last month, alternatively, and the narrative may start to shift. Are the Irish an ageing team in need of fresh impetus? Were they too reliant on some now absent individuals? As in the world of pop music, not every Irish boyband endures for ever.

Which makes life all the trickier for their returning head coach, Andy Farrell. Having been away with the Lions, no one will be more aware of the need for fresh momentum now. The last thing he wants is for Ireland to shrink back into the pack or to lose the aura they have developed since he took over from Joe Schmidt. Or, by extension, for him to be perceived as having taken his eye off the ball.

The next month will certainly be a test of the head coach’s famed motivational and man-management powers, perhaps on a par with guiding the Lions to series victory in Australia. In his absorbing and insightful new book Touching Distance: Irish Rugby’s Battle With Great Expectations, the seasoned Irish journalist Brendan Fanning includes some interesting observations from David Nucifora, who worked closely with Farrell on the Lions tour and, before that, in Ireland.

Among the most relevant is Nucifora’s belief that Farrell’s Lions experience will end up benefiting Ireland on a variety of fronts. “I think the Lions … came at a really good time for him,” Nucifora says. “It enabled him to go out and have another challenge and look at something different. It enabled Simon Easterby to come in and for the players to get a different voice. So I think that might be a little bit of a reboot that might enable him [Farrell] to go a bit longer again if he chooses to. Because he’s done an amazing job.”

Hugo Keenan played a vital role for the British & Irish Lions but he will not be available for Ireland’s encounter with New Zealand this autumn. Photograph: David Davies/PA

To which some will respond: “He would say that.” But these days Nucifora is advising the Scottish Rugby Union on how to kick on, a mission that would be assisted significantly if Ireland retreat back into the Six Nations shrubbery for a couple of years. It speaks volumes when such a shrewd judge believes even a faintly knackered post-Lions Farrell still has an ability to lift a team given to few others.

Not that it will be as simplistic or binary as that. Remember the blessed St Hugo of Keenan whose late try in the second Test in Melbourne clinched the Lions’ series win? Well, he’s not available and neither is Mack Hansen. Bundee Aki and Robbie Henshaw are both in the travelling squad to face the All Blacks but have been nursing injuries and, whisper it, mighty Leinster have not started this season’s United Rugby Championship at a gallop.

It has not stopped Farrell filling most of his squad with Leinster players – or prevented some muttering that he is basing too much on reputation rather than form. He still has plenty of quality up front in Tadhg Beirne and Dan Sheehan but not every Irish Lion illuminated Australia and time marches on.

A couple of years ago Ireland might have fancied winning all four of their November games, with Japan, Australia and South Africa all due in Dublin on successive weekends after the New Zealand encounter. Now? Those betting on a clean sweep might wish to include some kind of each-way element, just in case.

Either way a fascinating month looms. There was enough quality rugby played in the Rugby Championship to suspect Europe’s finest will have to up their game to prosper. An Irish-tinted Lions squad may have conquered the Wallabies but, by the end, the margin of victory was distinctly slim and Australia went on to lose four of their subsequent six Tests, albeit relatively narrowly.

What better time, then, for Farrell to wind back the clock in Chicago. For his side to stand tall once again at Soldier Field. And for Ireland to make a collective statement that banishes the idea that some generational warriors are approaching their sell-by dates.

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