Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Please stop. McCarthy has been great and rightly deserves his place on the plane but he isn’t taking Henderson’s position, in the starting XV or match-day team for any big game in the World Cup. Henderson was fantastic against Italy, best lock on the day.

Tadhgh Furlong and James Ryan being complete shadows of themselves has to be a concern. Two key positions and these guys used to be stand out players week in week out...There was a time when Furlong was a rampaging force of nature and the first person to be on a world 15. Hes simply not the same player anymore. A complete shadow

There was a 2 or 3 years when James Ryan was man of the match every other week, he was destined to be just as influential on a game as paul o Connell. A future lions Captain. He's never gotten back to anywhere near that level. He barely gets a mention on this thread anymore which speaks volumes

James Ryan has had an exceptionally good season both for Leinster and Ireland.

I’m not sure that posters cares about reality

Have you been watching the wrong games this year? Ryan has been fantastic over the last 12 months. It's arguable that Leinster collapsed in on themselves in the CC final after he went off. He's been that influential.

its gas the guys on here who think they are a better judge of a player than Andy Farrell or Paul O'Connell. They have no provincial bias, their sole aim is to get the best squad together to win the World Cup. They watch the players in minute detail and I for one think they get it right 99% of the time.

Whatever about the squad there will be some decisions to be made about starters. Furlong and, to a lesser extent, Henshaw don't seem to have hit fifth gear for us lately.

Furlong was one I queried last winter on here and was laughed at but it's too long now to not acknowledge that he isn't hitting the sort of heights he was hitting. I'd be starting Bealham I think.

I've always maintained there's little between Aki, Henshaw and Ringrose so if it's Aki at 12 I'm fine with that. I do think Henshaw is the best defender of the three though.

A bench of that has Henshaw, Furlong and Henderson coming on is serious oomph.

Centre is an interesting one. I suspect they went RB and Aki here, because RB has plenty of experience with Henshaw provincially (and obviously Crowley has little experience with either).

Personally would go Henshaw at 12 (but would have no issue whatsoever if Aki got the nod) and Crowley in the 22 shirt.

I think of the 2 starting 10 performances over the last 2 matches, Crowley's was much the better. Yes, it was against a weaker team, but it was playing with a scratch team. While RB was playing against more difficult opposition, but was playing with almost the first choice 15.

(And while Crowley did force an offload turning over the ball, I'm fairly sure RB threw a pass to no one that hit the deck in the first half too)

Coombes has been released from the squad. I think we can all move on now. Especially after Prendergasts impressive performance. All players make errors, it’s the overall performance over the 80 that we need to look at rather than nitpicking errors early on.

Yes!

now the "problem" is : are there 2 spots left for him and McCarthy

There are if we leave Stockdale out and go for the 19/14 split