Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Stockdale and JOB are in the squad. Daly or Nash might get a call up if we have more injuries.

You mentioned Coles and Taylor, both of whom have been arguably the best hooker in the world at different times. Based on last season, neither are in the conversation any more. Taylor's form fell off a cliff last year and Coles hasn't regained his since returning from injury. Taukei'aho has passed them both. Would love to see the ABs follow Ireland's lead and back two young hookers in Taukei'aho and Aumua.

Coles is 36, it's no surprise he's not able to do what he used to.

Wales' chances largely comes down to how much they can under the Irish players skin at the breakdown, if if Ireland have front foot ball and are ontop at the breakdown I really don't see a scenario where Wales win unless Ireland have an absolute shocker but if they do get under Ireland's skin like they have tended to do in the past in Cardiff then it will end up being an arm wrestle which I wouldnt feel confident as more often than not it hasnt gone well for Ireland in these sort of scenarios.

Its a talented back row but maybe a tad on the smaller size, especially if Ireland go with Baird,VDF,Doris.

I think Will Rowlands is a big loss as he's like the Jake Ball player that was always the big lump in the row that would pretty much guarentee a stable scrum. I think the Wales row is decent but looking at Ireland & Wales potential tight five there isnt a single Welsh player that would get in over their Irish counter parts so I would be very disappointed if the Irish scrum didn't get at least parity.

I think Halfpenny at 15 and even Hawkins at 12 pretty much confirms this, this is a Welsh team that simply needs territory so they will do everything possible to get in the right areas.

No major surprise with the Welsh team - Gatty is looking to knock one more year out of the old timers, it's probably his only realistic option. They have nothing much coming through.

I can see him moving on again after the World Cup because, while I expect he will succeed in stabilising them this year, they're headed for some dark days after the World Cup and I doubt if he'll be bothering to stick around for whatever kind of rebuild they're going to attempt from 2024 onwards.

Think we beat the brakes off of that Welsh team

I had a quick look there at 2013, which was the last time we won in Cardiff in the 6Ns. AWJ was injured but Wales still have 7 players from that day in their 23 for this weekend, 6 of whom are starting. You’d imagine if AWJ was fit then it would be 8 with 7 starting.

Ireland on the other hand have 4 players still around, only 2 of whom are likely starting (POM and Sexton). Healy and Murray are both probably on the bench.

I think we know what to expect from this team. They’re going to make absolute **** of every set piece and breakdown. And that can really work against this Ireland side.

But I still think we’ll have too much for them. The Ospreys did that against Leinster. But it was a weakened Leinster who still got the win. Our class should show in the end.

I don't think that Wales team can.

The aggregate over the last six Tests is 142-78 to Ireland. Basically two scores for every one of theirs. With and without Gatland.

There is absolutely no plausible arguments why Gatland coming back, with a squad backbone of creaking has-beens, will improve that average in any way.

Yes, Wales will go out to cause havoc at the breakdowns, but Ireland don't play a phase dominated game anymore, Wales can contest rucks that don't exist and we have more than enough smarts in our loose forwards to get penalties off them all day long.

Honestly lads, I think we're going to embarrass them.