Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Is our selection date relatively late compared to other teams?

Isn't it amazing how far Irish rugby has come in the 11 years since that 60-0 (Wallace flown in to 12 from the beach) embarrassment.

All the same Ireland are still relying on Sexton, Murray, POM, Healy (and Earls... please Andy never ever at centre during the WC)

On the other hand NZ are still relying on Retallick, Whitelock, Smith and Barret.

It's important to recognise how integral NZ/Aus rugby products (Lowe, Aki, JG-P, Hansen) have become in making this an all conquering Irish side.

I think there is an inevitability, something in the stars, that both side will meet in the 1/4 finals again this year....and Ireland continue on in their crusade!

Do you believe in fate?

Interesting about Am and Plollard I expect they will both be selected .The deselected bit is interesting ,expect players to make way for them

Hard to ignore something that didn't really happen. Due to Injuries JGP only came on for Murray once in the 6 nations.. v Scotland.

I think there is a case to be made to start Murray on some games and bring on JGP if some pace needs to be injected into the game.

Against South Africa for example I think Murray will start 9.

I don't know if Hansen or Lowe are world class, but they're vital to Ireland's attacking game plan. Both are brilliant distributors and kicking options. The essentially act as auxiliary playmakers. None of our other options have that creative element in their locker. We simply don't attack as well without them.

Lowe's cannon of a boot is also a big bonus.

That's part of the game plan. Wingers coming through to exploit gaps and create overlaps. It's one of the best features of our attack. Out and out wingers like Balacoune suffered in the system because it's not designed to have a finisher just waiting on the touch line for the ball.

Let’s hope we don’t face too many breaks in space against the likes of RSA.

the covid game v italy that he played at 15 he put in some decent clearances. he actually didnt play too badly that day tbh

i dont think hes a great 15 but i also dont think he was in great form overall when he was playing there for ireland, combine that with a team that wasnt playing that well in general and i dont think we got the best overall idea of his ability as a 15 - he had played pretty well there for ulster and the under 20s in the past

having said all that his form since 2018 has been so up and down in general that its hard to judge accurately

theres an element of making your own luck though. he scored from two very intelligent intercepts that 6N too. he wasnt that bad in 2019 too to be fair to him, he was just playing on an irish team that wasnt doing well (not that he was amazing either)

Stockdale actually made 176 metres with the ball v Italy.

To put that into perspective. When ireland played Italy in the six 176 metres is more than the 2 wingers combined made and one of them got man of the match.

What was the value of those meters tho? I don't think he showed a lot in the way of positives, certainly nothing that demanded inclusion. I don't mean that to knock him, but for me, I don't think he's close to any of the lads in front of him.

The metres repeatedly pushed us into scoring positions but we were unfortunately quite wasteful with some of those opportunities. His chase and grab of the ball on the deck after the Italian spill was the catalyst for our first try. His high take was almost the spark for the try that JOB nearly grounded. Doris' second try came after Stockdale broke into their 22.

He had loads of positive impacts on the game.