Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

They've included Frawley and Crowley at the expense of Ross Byrne, Carty and Burns so we can assume the latter three are done. Unless they've big plans for H Byrne it would appear that this is it.

The coaches really seem to see something in Frawley, even if he's a 10 slash 12, it's a big vote of confidence in a guy who is in single figures of appearances.

Jesus Christ he’s re registered again, more paranoid nonsense. We just need a mention of schools to complete this round.

Where would you rate kicking in terms of importance to Ireland’s game plan? It’s way down, tbh. Fwiw, I think his kicking has improved; he’ll never get the hangtime Murray gets but it’s not like JGP is an elite kicker either, as TRC mentioned.

And I don’t think the other options have demonstrated higher performances at the things most important to the Irish game plan; speed of service, tempo and accuracy of pass. (I think Casey has the best pass of all our 9 options tbh).

Also I'm not sure that Frawley is 4th choice at Leinster.

Harry Byrne was released to play for Lansdowne before getting Injured again.

Id say its a safe bet that at the point in time Frawley is 3rd and pushing for 2nd if he can stay injury free himself.

That's not the point I'm making tho. I think, regardless of our opposition / horses for courses, there's a really strong chance POM would've been selected ahead of Conan as he was in significantly better form.

I think Wycherley should be backed as first choice (for Munster), seems solid in the scrum and his handling is excellent. Loughman is in great form. Both could get international game time if they show enough.

I feel like Killer's race is run, like Cian Healy's. I wouldn't have either of them near a first choice provincial/international squad to be honest.

Frawley is interesting. Leinster have not seen him as an oh, until recently. Is this at the behest of AF? Crowley may be a future international 10, but he's got a lot of work to do. I think he has the tools. I suppose Burns and RB are out of the window ight now. Carty just doesn't have it! Harry Byrne is really an afterthought right now. There's no form or match time to gauge his level.

It will be interesting to see if Frawley does get a run for Leinster. Will he be up to the level? What about Joey? One half decent match and it's like he's the second coming! It's precarious at out half.

I think Casey has the 9 shirt in his grasp for Munster. Murray isn't near as fast working around the park. I would guess that GR and his staff need Casey to implement the game plan.

What about Joey? One half decent match and it's like he's the second coming!

Ah, I think that's overstating it, tbh. He's performance against the Bulls was encouraging (probably his best for Munster this calendar year) but he needs to start stringing a few performances together now. Hopefully he can, and that working with Mike Prendergast will benefit him too. If he can, that can only be a good thing for Ireland.

There's as much evidence of Crowley being 3rd choice at Munster as there is Frawley being 3rd choice at Leinster.

But Munster have an entirely new coaching ticket. That's the difference. I think it's more certain Frawley is 3rd choice than Crowley.

Because before that, he was very much behind Carbery and Healy in Rowntree's mind.

I'm not sure how you can know this with any certainty at all tbh, because...

He was on the bench for the Cardiff game, and not in the 23 for the Dragons and Zebre games.

For the Zebre and Dragons game, he was away with the EI squad. He wasn't available for those games. He's only been available for 2 games, the Cardiff and Bulls games; he was on the bench both times.

Frawley has actually started a game at 10 this season, which Crowley hasn't.

Ya, and that was the week the EI squad met up; Frawley was the only player out of 30 odd from the EI squad that played that weekend; no other player did, as far as I remember. (The Friday night kick-off probably helped, but it seems like Leinster got some lee-way with Frawley at 10 for that game that no other Province did with their EI players).

Frawley and Crowley both have great potential. Hopefully one of them or both get a decent run and show some consistency. Not panic stations just yet but we still have no one near the required level if Sexton is out come qf stage.

The scrum is our other main worry. Porter is clearly out in front at 1 but against France and SA I'm not sure his scrummaging will hold up(Furlongs either) . He's good but the way he binds with a low elbow will cost him penalties(even when he's not at fault).

I can't remember a better Irish front row but SA and France just have monsters come scrum time.

However we have the skill set across the team to keep our error count low to keep the amount of scrums low.

Its would have been crazy to say it in the past but I really hope we end up with NZ in the qf.

I also really hope Andy Farrell doesn't settle on a team. This was Joe's downfall, had his team who had previous success and overlooked players in form. Farrell needs to be ruthless and keep the team evolving even when we're on top

Ya, good shout, I'd forgotten that, presumably because they were already in SA. The larger point being tho, it was a game Frawley started that wasn't available to Crowley.

Frawley got the start vs Bennetton off the back of 27 mins off the bench in the previous game, tho. Crowley hasn't been available for Munster for consecutive games yet this season even off the bench, so there's a slight difference there too (however small a difference that might make to continuity; Crowley was to miss 3 games, Frawley only 2).

We'll see over the coming weeks, but at the moment, I don't think there's enough evidence to suggest Crowley is, or indeed isn't, definitively 3rd choice, so I'd agree entirely with this:

I don't think there's sufficient evidence to claim that one is higher up the pecking order at their respective province.