Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Wegians89

What has Casey done to deserve a chance ahead of blade? Form, big game exposure, everything blade comes out on top. Long term potential Casey probably has a higher ceiling

Bazzo

Dave Heffernan is lucky to retain his spot. Caolin Blade unlucky to miss out.

UAEguy2020

How on earth has Coombes not made the squad?

Buer

I don't think the guys that have missed out can have too many complaints for the most part. EOS would be a guy who I'm disappointed not to see. Luke McGrath can probably be a little disappointed he didn't get a recall ahead of JGP and Blade should feel similarly.

Coombes is unlucky but there's only so many back row spots, unfortunately. It's hard to look at it and see which 6/8 misses out to accommodate him. As an openside, Will Connors is lucky to be retained ahead of Jordi Murphy who has been brilliant in his last few appearances.

My justice for Dave Kearney campaign has not been successful, it seems. Whether it was for DK or someone else like Haley or JOB, I'm very surprised to see Conway in there. He hasn't played for a while (one appearance since the Wales game in the autumn) and has really been off the boil this season.

The Inbetween is mine

Surprised that Zebo hasn't made the squad

molloyjh

I tend not to be too judgemental of squad selections like this, but f*** me how are we making the same mistake at LH that we made in Nov all over again?

siltirocker

Surprised not to see Coombes, Marmion, Blade, and particularly Carty who have, in my opinion, looked better than players selected ahead of them. (That sad I understand the rationale of including Casey).

Heffernan has been poor by his own standards since the Autumn internationals, so surprised to see him in there.

Delighted for Ruddock.

Also confident any one of the centres could do a job, which is great. (McCloskey in particular hasn't put a foot wrong in 18 months).

awec

molloyjh wrote: »

I tend not to be too judgemental of squad selections like this, but f*** me how are we making the same mistake at LH that we made in Nov all over again?

Yep, absolutely no chance that EOS doesn't get drafted in mid-competition.

molloyjh

siltirocker wrote: »

Surprised not to see Coombes, Marmion, Blade, and particularly Carty who have, in my opinion, looked better than players selected ahead of them. (That sad I understand the rationale of including Casey).

Heffernan has been poor by his own standards since the Autumn internationals, so surprised to see him in there.

Delighted for Ruddock.

Also confident any one of the centres could do a job, which is great. (McCloskey in particular hasn't put a foot wrong in 18 months).

Coombes is unlucky, but there's a load of competition in the back row and its hard to pick a player to drop to make make room for him.

I think Marmion and Carty have shot themselves in the feet with some horrendous game management in big games lately. Neither can really be selected for the 6Ns if they can't be trusted to manage big P14 or HEC games.

Blade and Casey is possibly a bit of a toss up and arguably Casey has a higher ceiling.

We're not blessed with loads of quality hookers so Heffernan is probably fine as 3rd choice. But he's more there by default than anything I'd say.

molloyjh

awec wrote: »

Yep, absolutely no chance that EOS doesn't get drafted in mid-competition.

Thats assuming there even is a mid-competition! But yeah, I can't see 2 LHs lasting the tournament. This is entirely avoidable and if we do find ourselves short at LH again I'll be livid.

ionadnapokot

Does Carty have Covid?

He should be the starting 10.....if he was selected at all in the Autumn Cup.
Total joke

sydthebeat

molloyjh wrote: »

Thats assuming there even is a mid-competition! But yeah, I can't see 2 LHs lasting the tournament. This is entirely avoidable and if we do find ourselves short at LH again I'll be livid.

reckon they are persisting with this idea of bealham being ambipropsorous ?

edit: just checked.. no bealham !!

Bazzo

sydthebeat wrote: »

reckon they are persisting with this idea of bealham being ambipropsorous ?

Bealham isn't in the squad. They might be thinking about Porter I suppose...

Former Former Former

I'm happy enough with that squad tbh. I think it's pretty forward-looking in most positions (apart from loosehead really).

KIB4Life

typhoony wrote: »

Cooney, Marmion, McGrath, Blade. I heard the Argument it was either Murray Or Cooney not both in the same squad but the other 3 surely they are better than Casey and Gibson-Park

I’m actually kinda starting to believe what Darren Cave said once when he said his face doesn’t and it seems that certain players face doesn’t fit in the Irish set up for some unknown reason, have to feel fairly sorry for Cooney at this stage what more can he do to try get in the squad. I’d say probably himself and maybe Marmion will be off the France in the next year or 2 whenever the whole Covid-19 pandemic is over, to get a nice pay day for them which is no more then they deserve considering the treatment they have received from the Irish set up.

awec

Bazzo wrote: »

Bealham isn't in the squad. They might be thinking about Porter I suppose...

Porter will surely be starting at tighthead since Furlong hasn't played in so long.

OneLungDavy

I feel like Irish rugby is wasting such an immense talent in Ryan Baird. Obviously he has time on his side but he's the exact player Ireland are crying out for. Coombes too, to a lesser extent.

sydthebeat

OneLungDavy wrote: »

I feel like Irish rugby is wasting such an immense talent in Ryan Baird. Obviously he has time on his side but he's the exact player Ireland are crying out for. Coombes too, to a lesser extent.

who do you swap out for baird?

Rigor Mortis

Casey and O'Toole in

UAEguy2020

I only wish more young players who are ready now were picked such as Baird (apparently that is conclusion related), Coombes, O’Sullivan etc in the pack. We only have 30 games til the next World Cup so not much time to blood a significant number of new players. Having said that I would also be thinking that the environment in the team isn’t in the right place to be blooding players as we are still trying to find our feet by the looks of things and until we do that it’s really going to be hard to get the best out of newly introduced players. Right now Farrell needs to focus on continuity, if you look at all the successful 6N sides both now and in the past few years they have all had a culture where you always knew their best team and the direct replacements whereas with us right now it’s anyone’s guess and until we sort that out we are going to continue to struggle.

My XV v Wales

15 Hugo Keenan - 8 Caelan Doris
14 Jordan Larmour - 7 Peter O’Mahony
13 Garry Ringrose - 6 CJ Stander
12 Robbie Henshaw - 5 James Ryan
11 Keith Earls - 4 Tadgh Beirne
10 Jonathan Sexton - 3 Andrew Porter
9 Conor Murray - 2 Rob Herring
- 1 Cian Healy

16 Ronan Kelleher 17 David Kilcoyne 18 Tom O’Toole 19 Ultan Dillane 20 Josh VDF
21 Craig Casey 22 Ross Byrne 23 Bundee Aki

siltirocker

molloyjh wrote: »

I think Marmion and Carty have shot themselves in the feet with some horrendous game management in big games lately. Neither can really be selected for the 6Ns if they can't be trusted to manage big P14 or HEC games.

Hmm, I dunno. Two or three bad decisions were made. However Friend and Dillane have both said the calls were by coach/captain not the half backs. And I am sure Farrell takes that into account.

Also you would assume with Marmion's performances against Wales, England, All Blacks, Australia, etc he has enough in the bank. It's not like his form has ever really dipped either. I'd say he is sickened the Saracens relegation malark happened.

Lost Ormond

Clegg wrote: »

Would've had Baird in there somewhere. Been playing well for Leinster this season and was part of Ireland's 6 Nations squad last year off the back of a few good performances. Much more proven player this year. We've a strong second row however so no real complaints

Ahead of who?
Assume he was brought in last time for a look in terms of the long term and told what he needed to do. Not like he played last time.
As you say its a strong second row.

Wegians89 wrote: »

What has Casey done to deserve a chance ahead of blade? Form, big game exposure, everything blade comes out on top. Long term potential Casey probably has a higher ceiling

Dont see Casey being involved as an issue. I agree Blade should be picked but for me id be picking Blade ahead of Gibson Park

thomond2006

I can't fathom the selection of those 5 props. Kilcoyne has 53 minutes played since his injury in August. Furlong has zero minutes since the start of the pandemic.

Surely another loosehead could have been brought? Even if it was an academy player like Josh Wycherley to gain experience with the senior internationals.

This is asking for trouble.

Shelflife

So it looks as if we’ve nailed our colours to the mast and decided to put all our eggs in the Sexton basket. A 35yr old OH in mixed form who has only managed to finish one game in nearly two years .

We will rock up to the next WC with a 38yr old OH and 2 replacements with about 30 caps between them and most of those caps as replacements. There’s forward planning for you.

Oh and picking 2 SHs who aren’t even starting for their province is interesting to say the least.

Former Former Former

Shelflife wrote: »

So it looks as if we’ve nailed our colours to the mast and decided to put all our eggs in the Sexton basket. A 35yr old OH in mixed form who has only managed to finish one game in nearly two years .

We will rock up to the next WC with a 38yr old OH and 2 replacements with about 30 caps between them and most of those caps as replacements. There’s forward planning for you.

Oh and picking 2 SHs who aren’t even starting for their province is interesting to say the least.

If you expected Sexton to be omitted completely, then that's on you. There was never any prospect of that.

And then in the next breath, you're complaining about a new SH coming in?

bilston

sydthebeat wrote: »

no real big surprises

hopefully mcclousky gets some decent game time.

Good to see Conway retained

Barring at least two and probably three injuries, there is no chance McCloskey sees gametime. As much as I think he should be there, and should have had more of a go I can't help but feel it is a waste of everyone's time including him.

More game time for Stewart Moore at Ulster though which will benefit Ulster and maybe even Ireland st some point.

molloyjh

siltirocker wrote: »

Hmm, I dunno. Two or three bad decisions were made. However Friend and Dillane have both said the calls were by coach/captain not the half backs. And I am sure Farrell takes that into account.

We were told that against Munster a call came down from the coaches and there was confusion. I'd assume that means the call was for what tondo off the back of the scrum. There was def a mistake made there, but not one that was impossible to recover from. A couple of phases later Carty chose to put himself in an impossible position and Marmion gave him the ball despite there being absolutely nothing on on that side. Boyle mistake was bad, but it didn't cost them the game. Plus he's a young lad. That decision to go right off the last breakdown was made by 2 experienced heads, both of whom should have know better, and it was one that was in no way recoverable. It was far worse than what Boyle did. And was almost exactly what happened vs Bristol a few weeks previous. Half backs doing that more than once in bug games are not going to get selected for Test rugby.

siltirocker wrote: »

Also you would assume with Marmion's performances against Wales, England, All Blacks, Australia, etc he has enough in the bank. It's not like his form has ever really dipped either. I'd say he is sickened the Saracens relegation malark happened.

No player can dine out on past performances. If he isn't delivering now and is making incredibly costly mistakes instead then he can't really complain if he's not getting selected.

Paul Smeenus

molloyjh wrote: »

No player can dine out on past performances. If he isn't delivering now and is making incredibly costly mistakes instead then he can't really complain if he's not getting selected.

Been following Ireland long?

Bazzo

molloyjh wrote: »

We were told that against Munster a call came down from the coaches and there was confusion. I'd assume that means the call was for what tondo off the back of the scrum. There was def a mistake made there, but not one that was impossible to recover from. A couple of phases later Carty chose to put himself in an impossible position and Marmion gave him the ball despite there being absolutely nothing on on that side. Boyle mistake was bad, but it didn't cost them the game. Plus he's a young lad. That decision to go right off the last breakdown was made by 2 experienced heads, both of whom should have know better, and it was one that was in no way recoverable. It was far worse than what Boyle did. And was almost exactly what happened vs Bristol a few weeks previous. Half backs doing that more than once in bug games are not going to get selected for Test rugby.



No player can dine out on past performances. If he isn't delivering now and is making incredibly costly mistakes instead then he can't really complain if he's not getting selected.

Which call against Bristol? IIRC the mess ups there were Delahunt taking a stupid quick tap followed by Boyle making a call to go for the corner instead of take a shot at goal when the best Connacht could have got in any case was a losing bonus.

Carty has been in fine form overall. Marmion has looked good too, though I think Blade is edging him at the moment.

mfceiling

thomond2006 wrote: »

I can't fathom the selection of those 5 props. Kilcoyne has 53 minutes played since his injury in August. Furlong has zero minutes since the start of the pandemic.

Surely another loosehead could have been brought? Even if it was an academy player like Josh Wycherley to gain experience with the senior internationals.

This is asking for trouble.

This X 100.

No crowds definitely takes a bit of nerves away. Running out for a game in front of 80 people or running out in front of 80 thousand?

EOS could have been involved here and this chance would have stood to him greatly.

Cooney couldn't make that side if every other 9 had died and he was the only available one left.