Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I was referring there to posters who keep saying how big an Impact missing McCloskey for 3 games would have on Ulster. Which I think is completely overblown. If they are that reliant on one player, then it doesn’t say much about the state of Ulster rugby. That loosing one player would diminish their value as a team.

Some players are more important to a team than others; we saw what happened Ireland when Sexton got injured v NZ in the first Test.

But the larger point is that it won't just be one player; it'll affect some Provinces more than others, and in some cases a significant number are likely to be gone. For example, for Ulster it's not impossible that Hume, Stockdale, Baloucoune, Lowry, Doak, Timoney, O'Toole, O'Sullivan and Treadwell could all be gone, given the tier this seems to be geared towards.

Whatever way you cut it, there could be 30+ players (or 50+ if the frontline players are also out) taken out of domestic competition outside a Test window. That could be beneficial to Ireland. But I don't see how it's anything other than bad for the league, and impactful to the Provinces. Particularly when we saw how close run 2nd-6th was in the battle for Home QF's, SF's and Finals last season. And we saw how important that was in the end.

There is a chance that 1 or more province could get badly hit by this. I’d really hope that Farrell and the IRFU are looking to avoid that though. It would be very disappointing if the weren’t. The question really at this point is how badly will the provinces be hit and what is the overall benefit to the tour. If the price is low and there’s a tangible benefit then maybe it’s worth a shot. But the higher the price the less worthwhile the tour becomes. And at some point that price could become completely unacceptable. So far I don’t think Farrell has shown any signs of being “that guy” who screws over the provinces for the national side. So on that basis I’d be happy enough to wait and see how this pans out.

Based on the speculated team from Sports Joe it would see Ulster losing all of their outside backs (Lowry, McIlroy, McCloskey, Hume, Baloucoune). It's absurd to say they can replace them with "established internationals". Munster similarly would lose 4 front rows, 2 backrows and 2 second rows, I'm not sure how deep you think the provinces are to just shrug off the loss of 8 forwards like that.

Also it probably completely derails Connacht's season given how difficult their opening fixtures are, they need all of their key players available.

I think the tour makes sense from a team Ireland and RWC perspective but it's absurd to say this won't be a significant challenge for most of the provinces.

Ulster could put out a reasonably good backline with the above players missing:

9. John Cooney, 10. Billy Burns, 11. Ben Moxham, 12. Luke Marshall/Angus Curtis, 13. Stewart Moore, 14. Robert Lyttle, 15. Craig Gilroy; 21. David Shanahan/Michael McDonald, 22. Jake Flannery/Ian Madigan, 23. Aaron Sexton

Marshall, Curtis, Moore and Lyttle are quite injury-prone, though, so you can't count on them being available.

I think Aaron Sexton might have more international potential than McIlroy has. Just due to the latter's lack of pace.

I'd say the'll try to limit any province being hit too hard. Maybe something like if Baloucoune goes then Stockdale doesn't, and if Hume goes then McCloskey doesn't. Connacht have a tough run of games at the time and any players from them are more likely to be important players for them, so maybe Farrell won't select too many from Connacht.

Nope; imo it's likely to significantly affect 1 province, and materially impact at least 1 other. (We'll see what squad is picked, but there was a refernce to the Maori selection I think). An unlucky run of injuries and some teams could be really stretched.

You're saying people are massively over-exaggerating the impact it's likely to have on the URC, but do you recall how close it was in the final 3 rounds for the knock-out qualification spots, and home advantage?

If only there were 3 ultimately meaningless games this side of Christmas against actual quality opposition, against whom the players might actually learn something, that don't clash with the URC, where we could test fringe players and give them exposure without f*cking over the provinces...

I guess the IRFU are keen to secure the "Team of 2022" title. Then next year we can start building for 2026.

I’d imagine opposition schedules are probably a bit more relevant to the timing than anything else.

I'm not sure, molloy, that's still just 15 players you've listed. There'll be another, what, 17 or so? Even if that is the level of player they're looking to bring, there's still going to be disruption for the provinces that's likely to have an impact.

Just from the 15 you mentioned, that'd be Prendergast, Boyle, Blade, Dooley and Tom Daly missing for Connacht. Throw in Murray and/or Thornbury and it starts to become pretty significant for them.

I’d imagine a couple of those lads won’t be in the mix tbh. If Ed Byrne and Loughman go there probably won’t be a need for Dooley for example.

It will also be interesting to see if they bring any “senior” players. For example could Ruddock go in the same capacity as he did for Leinster in April? Someone will need to captain the squad after all.

It will also be interesting to see if any of the U20s go given that they only had a 3 game series as opposed to a World Cup this year.

I think that’s exactly awec’s point tbh.

Except it’s nothing like that at all. It’s more like getting an Academy player in to train with the senior coaches and systems there in order to prepare them to play senior provincial rugby. And then getting that A side to play an AIL side to test what they have learned.

Getting guys dedicated time with the Irish coaches to learn how Ireland operate and to see how they can adapt to that and then to have some form of test to see how they translate that to a match scenario is absolutely nothing at all like what you are describing. I’d almost think you were being deliberately facetious based on the above.

If you can’t see the positives in what a tour like this can bring then you are either not considering it at all or you are wilfully ignoring any positives. Because there is a point to this. The only question is whether the cost to the league and the provinces is worth the benefit. And we won’t know that for another month or so.

You seem to be laboring under the delusion that playing against better quality opposition will automatically make them better players.

Being comfortable in the systems both in attack, defense and transition. All improve from game time. It also gives the management a look at players in match situations, within their systems. Why do you think most teams look a bit all over the place at the beginning of a new season. Despite preparing for 2 months?

I see this didn't last too long...

 i said i won't post again if we win and so i won't.