Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Why are we talking about Kleyn? He’s not good enough to be in our 23 at the moment.

Ryan, Beirne and Henderson (when fit) are all far superior players. Baird has shown he can do it at international level in the GS win over England where he was excellent. McCarthy, Ahern and Edogbo are much younger and have potential to be better players than him in the not too distant future. Threadwell (whilst not my cup of tea) has been dynamic for Ireland off the bench and more impressive in his international than Kleyn was when he had his opportunity.

Kleyn is a decent player but if he’s named as one of South Africa’s starting locks against us in the world, I suspect we’ll all be delighted on here.

You’d think he was at the physicality level of Skelton or Meafou the way some people go on about him. He’s played a lot of minutes for Munster this year which proves how durable he is, but would Munster fans really start him ahead of a fully fit Beirne and RG Snyman?

Good luck to him, but I suspect he’ll get a few caps for SA in the run up to the World Cup and unfortunately lose out on the final squad selection. Hopefully it’ll have been worth it for him when he is negotiating his next contract in Ireland or abroad.

Why are we talking about Kleyn? He’s not good enough to be in our 23 at the moment.

I think Kleyn is getting a lot of mention because

1. The unusual set of circumstances arising from him being capped by 2 Tier 1 Nations and
2. Simply, he’s had a very, very good season.

And he may not be good enough for out 23 if everyone is fit. But imo he’s had a better season than both Henderson and Treadwell.

And we know injuries can happen.

You’d think he was at the physicality level of Skelton or Meafou the way some people go on about him

To be fair, I don’t think anyone’s been bigging him up to this degree.

If we're talking about physicality, there's no lock in Ireland playing with as much of that as James Ryan.

Been so impressed with how destructive his rucking his become.

McCarthy and Edogbo are pretty similar

Munster are going to have some herd in a couple of years, Edogbo, Quinn and Gleeson are all very big men now at 19/20.

Has there been any more word about Osborne? Was mentioned on here that he possibly did his cruciate a few weeks ago.

I don’t think you’re debating this in good faith. But I’ll lay out my points anyway.

1. It’s the Ireland thread.
2. The title is ‘Ireland Team Talk XII Farrell’s First Fifteen’.
3. Theres a World Cup kicking off in 2 months

As such I don’t think it would be unreasonable to expect us to be talking about players who are in or around the current squad or eligible to play for us.

And I don’t appreciate the suggestion that I’m taking a stance on this player for a particular reason. Hopefully there was no provincial BS undercurrent to that.