Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

It’s a waste to play Porter from the start for 60 or so mins instead of having him sitting on the bench and playing 30? All while we start an aging Healy at LH backed up by an aging Kilcoyne?

Porter to LH was the only thing that made sense. Ireland doesn’t have any other Test quality LHs. So either we redeploy Porter to LH or we have feck all options at LH. Having Porter riding pine for most of the game while we struggled at LH made no sense at all. It’s better that we have Test quality starting as opposed to wasting Test quality in the bench when they could be starting.

I think they are both legit concerns, tho.

Sexton has gone off injured in a good number of games in the last year, and a lot of those times in the first half. Much more so for Leinster than Ireland admittedly, so let's hope it was just a matter of Leinster erring on the side of caution.

With regards Lowe, every player in the squad has a weakness, but not every player has had their weakness so exposed in the last year. Huge credit to Lowe for yesterday tho, we saw what he can offer on the other side of the ball. If he can even get to par with his positioning, tackling and defence, then I think himself and Conway are deserved first choice for the foreseeable (and with Keenan that feels like a lovely balance, to me). But Lowe wasn't tested much yesterday. If he's selected for the weekend (which I think he will, and should, be) then he's clearly satisfied the coaches on the defensive front.

(And I'm saying that as a huge fan of Earls. I think Earls is suffering from Munster having picked him at 13 a couple of times this season).

I’ve mentioned a few times here that the Irish backrow is less than the sum of its parts. It’s not necessarily about getting the 3 best backrows on the pitch but about the 3 best suited. I wouldn’t pick out any individual player as the problem more the setup. Saturday went well but obviously defence is a big part of the backrow which we didn’t see much from, there is probably something to be said for dropping in an entire Leinster backrow albeit one that as a unit isn’t a regular setup as there maybe a bit of familiarity that helps.

Lowe getting a lot of vindication from people writing him off so convincingly which is pleasing.

But I'm chuffed to pieces for JGP who had a phenomenal showing which has snuck under a lot of peoples radar.

The comments I've seen on him range from the nice that he has dirt on Farrell which is why he keeps getting picked to the much meaner "he's just ****"

I don't think JGP is the best player in the world, but he's a far superior player than people give him credit for and showed it here.

A lot of the tempo was dictated by him and it's something he's always had a good measure of. His knack of speeding things up and slowing things down was notable here and we really benefitted from it.

His grubber assist for Conway was such a satisfying one that added a lovely extra dimension on one of the best team tries we've scored in recent years. Big play executed fantastically well.

Another big positive from the game was how much responsibility Aki, Ringrose, Lowe and Keenan took in terms of playmaking and distribution. Not everything went through Sexton.

Which hopefully means it will no longer be a case of "get to Sexton, stop Ireland"

Sheehan did great, but Herring is still the natural choice to finish a match v NZ

I'd stick with Sheehan.

The lineout was misfiring before Sheehan came on and I've always thought Sheehans darts were better than Kellehers.

So dropping Sheehan because of his darts but starting Kelleher would seem a bit of a contradiction.

Sheehan is the future and is already a batter player than Herring IMO.

The reality we face is that financially the 6N is far more lucrative for the IRFU than a RWC. Unless we won the thing. So de-emphasizing the 6N is never going to make sense. Therefore our cycles are more year on year.

Though the coaching contracts are usually RWC cycles, so the IRFU Clearly care about.

I just don’t believe that what’s going to happen in 2 years time, is having much influence on what they’re trying to do right now.

Let me guess, some of your best friends are travelers? Amazing that this sort of disparagement still goes without remark.

Don't think anyone can claim that Sheahen is clearly at another level to Herring or one or two others...not yet anyway.