Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Lose

kleyn

hodnett

carbery

timoney

connors

deegan

Ah, yes. Prendergast. Forgot him.

Prendergast will be in there. Think Frisch, Shane Daly and Niall Murray could be surprise inclusions in the wider squad. Think you’ll only see one of Hodnett, timoney or Connor’s in there.

Of course it means nothing probably would it’s interesting to see if any of the names listed are in the announced squad

I'd say the squad is fairly set. A couple of new players may get a look.

4 years ago we were in meltdown. It’s a very different scenario coming off the back of a GS. Kleyn was a knee jerk reaction to getting dominated physically.

Not Ireland team news, but rather relating to one of our WC opponents.

Libbok and Willemse as your only 10's is a big problem for South Africa. The former is pretty dodgy and the latter is a fullback. I assume they'll call up another 10 (Pollard?) because those options won't win them a World Cup. I'd be very happy if either of them started against Ireland.

Sexton, Crowley and Byrne are our three 10's for the World Cup. Furlong will be in the squad but Bealham is pushing him now. He's the best performing tight head in Ireland this season.

I'm not sure Hodnett will travel, simply because Farrell doesn't appear to want a specialist 7 outside VDF. We had no recognised back up in the Six Nations iirc.

For the 2019 WC we selected 5 backrow forwards. POM, VDF and Doris will start the big games so there's two spots available if Farrell goes with a similar selection policy. Conan has arguably been the form backrow in the country since the Championship where he also played well. I think the final spot goes to Cian Prendergast. He has experience in the Ireland camp and finished the season excellently.

I think Ryan Baird travels as well, potentially as a fourth lock. I think he's a better blindside flanker, but he made some key contributions in the Six Nations playing at second row.

Just seen that squads for the World Cup have been expanded from 31 in 2019 to 33 for this year. Definitely gives the chance for more flexibility in selection.

Can see one utility back and an extra hooker touring. Or maybe an extra scrum half? Due to squad limits last time we only brought McGrath and Murray. JGP, Murray and Casey should all travel.

A 45 man squad is being named this week, the hard calls are still some way off. Anyone with even an outside chance will be called up.

It's great to see Crowley doing so well but Farrell won't jettison Byrne on the basis of one match. Will be interesting to see who gets called up as back up, whether they still want to see Frawley

Byrne was only ever likely to be a stopgap after Sexton. As good as he is as controlling games. One of the young 10’s coming through will pass him in the next 18 months.

I think his end of season performances cost Blade a place in the final squad - he was dreadful against the Stormers and many Connacht fans in their thread were willingly pointing out such.

He got Player of the Year with Connacht (unsure if players vote or otherwise) but I think Casey and Murray have shown their value the last few weeks on the big stage.