Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Watching leinster and I don't get why Mccarthy conan and Byrne are in the Irish squad

Ross Byrne is similar to Billy burns as in good pros but nothing more, Mccarthy is naive as fcuk and conan is in poor form

They're picked for the same reason Craig Casey was picked, potential. It worked out OK for Casey in fairness

Its always worth having a very big second row in a squad for scrum training if you can manage it. Roux was in and out of the Ireland squad for years without featuring much because of this.

McCarthy is (I believe) the third heaviest Irish lock playing in Ireland. The heavier locks are Kleyn and Edogbo (injured).

Between Kleyn and McCarthy McCarthy has the benefit of being a development guy too.

Keep em coming.

I don't agree. Doris is playing at a level no other forward in Ireland is at the moment including VDF. Been sensational all season in blue and green.

The complete lack of nuance in your position is just amusing. If we lose to France by a point in a belter of a game between 2 of the best sides in the world then so what? It just means we’re 2 fairly evenly matched sides and either side can win on any given day. Sure we might not even play France in the RWC anyway, so even if that game was an indicator as to how we compare to them it may end up being completely irrelevant. And if we do play then it will be in a different situation, at a different time with most likely somewhat different squads.

Ive made my position on what I think we should be getting from this championship clear. A title is important and if we don’t win that then it’ll be a disappointment. But again, the context and nuance within that will determine the wider opinion. Did we play well? What did we show in our game? What exactly were the issues? Are they easily fixed or are there bigger issues at play? Was mental weakness a part of it or was there issues about depth exposed? Did we just get unlucky at times with an unfortunate red card etc etc.

Take for example losing to France. Not all losses are equal. A 1 point loss in a great game is not the same as a 20 point loss in a poor one. Not when judging performances and especially not when looking to the future.

Setting the bare minimum expectation as the maximum possible result effectively allows you to give them no credit at all. Win all the games well and get the GS? Sure that’s exactly what they should have done. Get a bit unlucky or underperform even slightly just once and you’ve got the ammo you need to have another go.

Being very definitive about future performances is nothing short of hot takes. There are so many variables and things to consider that real life can easily make a mockery of that definitiveness. You need to be open to giving some wiggle room and judging things on the sum total of all their merits, not just the small handful of things you want to look at.

If we can't beat France at home, how can we expect to have any chance of beating them in Paris in October?

Because performance and result, while related, are different. And a result in one game does not guarantee anything about the result in the next. (For example, Test 1 and 2 in NZ).

I think it’s possible to put in a losing performance that indicates we could be beat in Paris.

If we lose to any of them, then yes, it's fair to say we've gone backwards from having the New Zealand crowd booing their own team off at half time, such was the humbling we gave them in the first half.

To be fair, TRC, I think after the first Test, you were claiming this side were mentally weak?

They’ve already shown they can bounce back from a loss.