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How the Murray-ahead-of-Cooney selection went down with Irish fans
By Josh Raisey
After weeks of campaigning from fans, John Cooney has been named in the Ireland squad to face Scotland this Saturday in the Six Nations.
The Ulster scrum-half is on the bench for the contest at the Aviva Stadium, which begins a new era under Andy Farrell in Ireland.
The 29-year-old has arguably been the form player in Europe this season (although Racing 92’s Virimi Vakatawa may have something to say about that), having bounced back from missing out on Ireland’s World Cup squad.
It would have been an absolute aberration had he not been selected for this match.
However, the fact that he has only made the bench in a side showing just two changes from the starting XV that beat Scotland at the World Cup has still surprised many.
Farrell has said that he will pick players based on form, which is more or less accurate when looking at the rest of the squad as it does reflect Leinster’s superiority at the moment.
While Conor Murray has held onto the Ireland nine shirt for most of the past decade, it would be absurd to suggest he is in better form than Cooney currently.
The Munster scrum-half’s standard has dropped from the lofty heights of 2018, while his rival is both the Guinness PRO14’s and the Heineken Champions Cup’s top scorer, as well as the second top try-scorer in Europe’s elite competition.
However, former Ireland international Tommy Bowe has noted that the experience of Murray may prove beneficial with Caelan Doris making his Test debut at No8.
Additionally, in a game that Farrell will be desperate to win, it is understandable that he has turned to the longstanding partnership between Murray and Jonathan Sexton.
With 83 Test caps for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, Murray has far more experience than Cooney, who only has eight Ireland caps and only one start.
But many are expecting Cooney to get a lot of game time against Scotland on Saturday, as he deserves to be given the chance to bring his searing club form into the Test arena.
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Latest Comments
Look there are a few unarguable facts here that are very clear. SARU was close to bankruptcy with SR, bailed out by the Lions and they need the URC and EPCR. Inclusion of SA teams in URC has been a great for for ALL concerned, from a rugby perspective and financially, moreover there is massive growth yet to come. The GP is in financial trouble and this will be the catalyst for EPCR change to further cement the Boks.
If this all plays out with even greater rewards for the urc AND the Top14 & GP via EPCR, the 6N will become 7N. Nz and Aus NEED to get their version firing with Japan & the PI’s, otherwise they will find themselves increasingly regressing…
Go to commentsPerofeta came back and was available for the eoyt right? Or was that why Love was in the squad (but got injured in the last week)?
It was such a frustrating year. Perofeta looked a service stop gap until Jordan was fit, but then got injured. Plummer was selected because of Pero's injury and dmac shat the bed in the second half in Australia but Clarke (?) got himself binned at the 65 min mark so Plummer couldn't come on (at least with the risk adverse Razors thinking) when he was planned to.
So many other exciting opportunities that could have happened without injuries, but then theyre probably balanced by knowing Sititi probably wouldn't have been given a chance without multiple injuries happened.
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