I would have preferred Larmour on the bench, experienced enough plus still has plenty of room to grow.
Yea Stockdale should be back soon enough. Farrell has done well. The 6nations will be great viewing.
I think Addison or Stockdale might have been 23 ahead of Earls had either of them been fit.
I think he’s got the balance right in the starting 15. It’s giving the players selected the best opportunity to perform well.
Carbery gets his chance behind a first choice pack with ‘Lions’ inside and outside of him. He nailed some high pressure kicks last week and a good performance tomorrow could do wonders for his form going on.
Baloucoune gets his chance in a close to first choice backline. Very excited to see what he can do in combination with the likes of Lowe, Ringrose and Keenan. The pack should be able to provide them with some go forward ball. He could be a big player for us going forward.
Harry Byrne and Casey will hopefully get decent minutes. I’d have liked to see Coombes off the bench but there’s a balance to be found and POM has gone well over the last 2 weeks. Maybe Coombes isn’t completely 100% after being ill hence him being held back. He’ll get minutes during the 6N baring loss of form or injury.
I don’t think Larmour or Zebo have done enough this season to warrant the 23 jersey so no harm to give them a bit of motivation to find their best form back at the provinces. Likewise with Baird. Caps should be earned and not just handed out to appease supporters.
It was mentioned above that all we have to do is look at the squad from the start of the year to see the progress that has been made.
The front row has gone from Healy, Herring, Furlong to Porter, Kelleher, Furlong. Sheehan is making a real play for that 16 shirt too.
Beirne had been moving back and forth between lock and blindside. He’s now nailed down lock as his position.
Our back row was POM, Connors, Stander. Now it’s Doris, VDF, Conan.
Murray was our first choice scrum half. He’s been dropped in favour of JGP.
Burns was our second choice 10 (albeit with Carbery injured). With Carbery back he’s taken that slot, but instead of having Burns as 3rd choice we now have Harry Byrne there.
Earls was our starting right wing. He’s been overtaken by Conway and possibly even Balacoune now. And while Lowe was starting on the wing, he has since been dropped and brought back in again.
We’ve seen 7 changes to our starting XV alone this year as well as Lowes exclusion and return to the squad.
Add to this the change in game plan plus the fact that we know that Farrell isn’t shy about giving players debuts in 6Ns games that aren’t against Italy (players like Kelleher, Doris and Keenan can attest to that) then we can clearly see that if guys are good enough they will get games. And not just games against the US. We seem to be evolving our side quite well and we don’t really need those games where we blind loads of young lads in one go because we’re blooding them as we go along.
The starters need to get comfortable to life without Johnny. Crucial for Carbery that he has the likes of Ringrose, Lowe and Keenan to slot in at ten when needed to relieve pressure. I actually really like this selection from Farrell because you can tell exactly what's it's about.
He also has to implement a style of play, which is requires a certain amount of continuity.
We've had two games where we're starting to look slick and fluid in our new style. So we'd be getting way ahead of ourselves if we thought we we're in a position to make wholesale changes and still be cohesive.
It's really important that we keep improving and building momentum with the 6N around the corner.
I'm never happy! I guess, I want AF to blood as many as possible, against good opposition. You are right. He is mixing it up, but not as much as I would.
But he's playing Baloucoune, Sheehan, O'Toole, Casey and H.Byrne? What's that if not building depth?
That's 5 very young, very inexperienced players against a tier 1 nation. How many do you want? He can't play all the kids. Add to that Kelleher and Doris (both 23) who have become 1st choice players this November.
He plays young player X, and you say you want young player Y. He can't win.
My point is.... playing against the U S is not really a tough outing! Playing Argentina is. Building depth, would be playing less regular lads in fixtures like this. I get that AF wants to win. But, I think playing the Hume's and Timoneys against the pumas, would prove crucial in the long term.
Yeah, and Earls’ versatility and experience is worth a lot coming into the 6N, it makes sense that he gets game with Lowe, Keenan, Ringrose, etc.
someone earlier pointed out the new cap pathway to starting against top sides. 1 or 2 games against the likes of the USA then a 6 nations game. There’s still a lot of game time before the World Cup and the players who’ve made the grade with Farrell have done it fairly rapidly. It’s also a lot easier if the team is playing a good system very well, which might be happening.
The other 2 backs on the bench are incredibly green with 4 caps between them. It will be beneficial to have some experience coming on with them as it could be a close game. It's about striking a balance. I don't think Earls is in his long-term plans.
And also there's no centre cover on the field so Earls could be needed there.
The metric of "new caps" dictating one's approval of a team really irritates me.
Take Harry Byrne for example. He had a 20 minute cameo against the USA in the summer. But people don't get excited about him being there because technically he isn't a "new cap".
Likewise Casey, who's only had a couple of cameos against Italy and Japan and a start v USA. But he doesn't excite people because he's not a "new cap"
Dan Sheehan is another one. He's been capped so he doesn't excite people.
Imagine H.Byrne didn't come on v the USA in the summer and Sheehan didn't come on against Japan.
It would make virtually no difference, but it would read as 2 new caps rather than 0 and people would approve, even though it makes very little difference.
People need to pay less attention to whether a player is capped or not and more on his age profile and minutes.
Baloucoune, Sheehan, O'Toole, Casey and H. Byrne are 5 players everyone should be buzzing to see play and they all have 3 caps or fewer. But they don't excite certain people because they aren't "new caps". It's strange.
I'd like to have seen Hume get the nod. Henshaw might be needed at 12 if Aki wasn't available, so I think it would be good to have an alternate to Ringrose at 13 who wasn't Henshaw.
And 34-year old Earls on the bench? What's that about? Would it not be better to get someone involved who's more likely to be in the frame come World Cup time?
I just don't think we are developing enough quality.
What does this even mean? You can cap loads of guys, but either the quality is there or it isn't.
Who should have been capped that hasn't been?
Capping loads of new guys every window for the sake of it, isn't an effective way to build a squad. I think the majority of uncapped players that Farrell sees as part of his World Cup squad, have already been capped. Ideally, we'll see less and less new caps as we get closer to the RWC, as the squad will start to take shape.
All young players who Farrell has introduced to test rugby. Plus Osborne (20) and Ahern (21) in camp as development players. I honestly don't know what some people want.
How people look at that and say he doesn't have an eye on the world cup amazes me
Did ye all notice the new additions to the England squad? I know little about them. I would guess that EJ is making his selections with the world cup in full view.
I'm not saying that AF is conservative at all. I would assume that he's building for the 6nations. The team is flying and it looks rosy atm. My hopes are sky high for the 6nations. But, we won't see many new or fringe players until we face Italy.
I'm one of the new cap brigade! Mea culpa! I just don't think we are developing enough quality.
Realistically, for the world cup you would need a base of around 40 players. You would not want the fall off from 1st choice to back up being large?
I think this upcoming match is a serious event for Murray. A bad performance and he will be in a tough situation. I don't doubt that Casey is rarin to go. Murray imo, is under pressure.
There's only 1 new cap because Farrell has already capped a sh*tload of players in his 2 years.
All of those are guys in the squad who have been capped by Farrell since he's been in charge. 4 of them are now regular starters. He is clearly developing the squad.
People just want "new caps" for the sake of giving new caps. Use your eyes and look at the cycle as a whole, not just this isolated window.
Farrell has been building a squad since he took over tbf. Now is the right time to bed in his systems.
Disappointed to see Pom over Coombes or Timoney, and I Frawley would have been an interesting shout.
1 new cap during the AI's is fairly low, I know he's developing the gameplan rather than the squad, still could have blooded 2 players that look like they'll be involved for a long time
There's respecting the opposition and then there is being realistic.
We should respect the opposition but some here predicting this to be a tight game based on no evidence this season isnt being realistic. The bookies have Ireland by 13.5, the average margin of victory over Argentina based on the last 4 games in Dublin is 16 points. You add in where both teams are at currently and if anything you would expect the margin to be North of 13.5 & 16 rather than south of it. Just saying anyone who say's this will be close I dont want to see them Sunday evening coming back and saying us winning comfortably was obvious, they lose all credibility at that point.
Yeah, we won back in 2018. Also I dont recall us underestimating Argentina in 2015 if that's what you are referring to, in fact if anything we treated them with the utmost respect.
It's almost like respecting the opposition is a good thing.
If we're off our game and Argentina play to their best, they can absolutely turn us over. How is being mindful of that a bad thing?
Now, if we're on it, we should win handily. And we should do. But we should also respect them because they're a good team.
Need I remind people what happened the last time we underestimated Argentina?
Im just seeing a trend recently from the Japan & NZL games where we seemed to talk up our opposition to the highest of heights and talk down Ireland and then when Ireland go out and demolish the opposition the same people seem to back track and say Japan are sh*t and NZL are tired and we should have been confident of winning anyway...Predicting Argentina to make this a close game when there is no evidence of them being capable of doing that based on what we've seen from Ireland & Argentina so far in 2021 seems to be following the same trend.
That's better!
I don't know! They won't test Ireland! We're just so good! We shouldn't even show up! This child's play!
Every team is physical, what exactly do Argentina have going for them that will point to them testing Ireland?
Well, tbh, I reference our half backs. I don't have much confidence in either. Argentina are not world beaters! But, they're going to be physical and give us a good run.
What's the opinion based on though? Because everything we've seen this year from both sides plus the history of this fixture points to a comfortable Irish win.
Possibly! But that just an opinion.
Wronf thread
