Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

A good win at the weekend, some very good skills on display, we keep that mentality for the NZ game and we will be tough opposition for them. An important win considering we only barely beat them back in July

I think he was referring to CJ Stander nearly taking Pat Lambie's head off in his first game against his county of birth

and hoping James Lowe doesn't do something similar on Saturday

Edit: And holy sh*t Bundee Aki did it v Samoa aswell. So James Lowe is guaranteed to get sent off this weekend

Might stick a tenner on it

Controversial opinion, one of the best things for Catt/Farrells game plan was CJ retiring.

Absolutely ZERO to do with him being a project player or being from Munster. He gave his all and had a high workrate but was so limited. This always got found out against the better teams who knew you stopped Stander ball was never going to get past him, Sarries/England neutralised him so often. We wouldn't have scored that try against England, Lowes 1st try or Akis try is CJ had been in the same position.

I always much preferred a player who could do both a Billy V who created alot of tries by subtle offloads, a Picamoles. That is why I much prefer a ball playing backrow like Conan who can run over you just as quick as draw and pass to create a try for another player. Doris also is a much better ball player.

My abiding memory of CJ was him getting the ball I think against Scotland in our 22 with loads of space and a 3 on 1. The panic on his face as he had no idea what to do rather than draw and pass threw a wild miss pass to no one!!! That is why I think Coombes puts more fear into me than CJ as he can do both.

I agree Japan were poor, and their lineout sort of epitomised that a bit, even when we didn't compete we still won their lineout.

At the same time Japan got within 11 points of Australia two weeks ago, I haven't compared the teams, but the point I'm making is were Japan so poor because they were shaken by the way we played, expecially in that first 30 minutes, or were they just generally s***?

I'm not getting carried away with the result of the match. But it is worth noting that we've played against crap teams before under Farrell, but we've never played like that.

What has me excited is that over the last 12 months, we've been seeing that kind of rugby with gradually increasing regularity and consistency. We saw a bit v Scotland in the ANC. We saw a bit more v Italy. The England game was a big stepping stone. And in the Japan game we just took it to an all new level.

So it's clearly something that's been worked on and we've been gradually improving and becoming more comfortable with.

The result v NZ is secondary for me. I want to see us play exactly the same way we did v Japan and not revert to type.

With the skillset and mobility of our forward pack, if we can perfect that style and play it against every team, we're going to be a seriously tough team to play against.

Japan made 3 changes to the side that faced Australia so it was a very, very similar side. And Australia had a few of the guys who were missing in the game against Scotland, e.g. Quade Cooper.

I have almost no idea at all what to expect from this weekend. And I’m all the better for it I reckon. NZ will be the favourites but just how much we can trouble them is the big thing for me. We know what they can do. We know that if we’re focused we can deal with their threats as well as anyone. But what can we bring to the party on our ball? That’s what I don’t know.

Will this new style give us better platforms to attack from or will we be dependent on quick ruck ball, time and space that we won’t be able to get? Will we need to tie players down to the rucks and limit our attacking options? And if so (because let’s face it, that will happen) how does that affect how we approach the game overall? We will almost certainly need to be somewhat more conservative. But how much so and what happens if things don’t work? Do we retreat into our shells and revert to type? What about how we’re equipped to deal with counter attack if our attack breaks down? We know NZ can be ruthless there. Are we prepared for that?

I don’t actually care about the result tbh. I’m just fascinated to see how the whole thing pans out and where it leaves us going into next year.