Farrell handed back-to-back home start
INCOMING Ireland head coach Andy Farrell will be hoping it is a case of home comforts when he takes over from Joe Schmidt for next year’s Six Nations.
Farrell will begin his tenure in charge with back-to-back games at the Aviva Stadium as the Englishman looks to hit the ground running in his new job.
Fresh off the back of their World Cup meeting in September, Scotland will be the first side to visit Dublin on February 1 before Ireland get a chance to exact revenge on Grand Slam champions Wales a week later.
Farrell’s side will then travel to Twickenham to take on England in what will be Ireland’s only Sunday match of the 2020 tournatackles
Dublin debut: Andy Farrell
ment. Their final home game will be against Italy on March 7 and then they round off the campaign at the Stade de France on March 14 at 8.00pm.
No games for at least the next two years will take place on Friday nights with a move back towards the more traditional Saturday and Sunday.
In 2021, Ireland will begin the Six Nations in Cardiff on February 7, in what will be the first of three clashes on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a report in the French media has linked Ronan O’Gara with a move to France ahead of the World Cup. Patience is running thin with head coach Jacques Brunel, and O’Gara could be hired in a consultancy role. 2020 Six Nations Round 1: Ireland v Scotland, Saturday Feb 1, 4.45pm; Round 2: Ireland v Wales, Saturday Feb 8, 2.15pm; Round 3: England v Ireland, Sunday Feb 23, 3.00pm; Round 4: Ireland v Italy, Saturday Mar 7, 2.15pm; Round 5: France v Ireland, Saturday Mar 14, 8.00pm
2021 Six Nations Round 1: Wales v Ireland, Sunday Feb 7, 3.00pm; Round 2: Ireland v France, Sunday Feb 14, 3.00pm; Round 3: Italy v Ireland, Saturday Feb 27, 2.15pm; Round 4: Scotland v Ireland, Sunday Mar 14, 3.00pm; Round 5: Ireland v England, Saturday Mar 20, 4.45pm. WORLD Rugby are considering introducing a series of radical law changes including a 50-22 kick and a 10-minute incident review in a bid to improve player safety following the deaths of four players.
A three-day Player Welfare symposium at Marcoussis near Paris, attended by senior medical figures, administrators, coaches and players representatives concluded yesterday with an agreement to put eight law change proposals forward to the influential Law Review Group (LRG) in May.
The LRG, chaired by former Scotland international John Jeffrey, will then decide which of the proposals are trialled in a bid to create more space and reduce
Key role: John Jeffrey
in a sport which has seen a dramatic increase in both the size of players and the velocity of collisions since the advent of professionalism in 1995.
While World Rugby research shows the number of injuries appears to have plateaued in recent times, the severity of those injuries has increased.
Following the deaths of four players in France, and after years of resistance, there now appears to be a mood among senior figures to make changes in order to improve safety in a sport which has seen average player weights increase by almost two stone (12 kg) since the first World Cup in 1987.
“We need to change the philosophy,” one delegate said.
Intense pressure has been placed on the French Federation of Rugby (FFR) after four young players died in the space of eight months. The World Rugby symposium was held at the FFR’s headquarters near Paris and attended by France’s Minister of Sport Roxana Maracineanu.
The main aim was to find ways to slow the game down and reduce the number of collisions in a sport many believe has become overly obsessed with power.