How much would a tour to Argentina make anyway? If every rugby championship/6 nations side played 1/2 more games a year against Uruguays/Namibias/Georgias every year the sport would be in far better place
Not going to make the irfu much money but would be great for the game and a great opportunity to blood some newer players
Not sure how much difference it will make in the new format and I would struggle to see us dropping below 6th anyway.
The problem is that people massively overestimate the "long term gain" side of the argument.
if we just do nothing than focus on 2027, short term pain for potential long term gain. If we arent in the top seeds for the draw, that is immediately going to make life harder....
IRFU may only do that during a Lions tour if even.
Any tour to Argentina should now have to include Urugua/Chile but thats unlikely...
Absolutely zero interest in a tour to SA. Can we not play the south Americans or Georgia or someone?
Great news that they got Aki to stay on another couple of years.
Now the goal should be a grand slam in 2024 with this same side and a big effort against South Africa in the summer.
From September on there’ll be loads of time left to sort out what new players deserve a run out in the autumn internationals.
And we know from their QF exit that this was a complete waste of time
/s
Fat lot of good it did them
(yes....the perfect recovery)
After a decade of underachievement.
Wasn’t their highest 6 Nations finish something like 3rd over those 10 years?
You can’t remotely say the same for Ireland.
That's pretty much what France did after 2019
Completely. The argument that “we’ve never done..” has had an ever diminishing list of examples over the last 20 years*.
To the point that the RWC is the only blot left on our copybook. Yes, a fairly major one, and there may well be some things we need to change.
But I’m not in the slightest bit convinced discarding a current World Player of the Year nominee is one of those things.
(*You might call…. it ‘the BOD of the gaps theory’).
Are Aki, Henshaw and Ringrose not all on central contracts for the last few years? We don't start three centres.
His experience to pass onto the young players will be critical to them progressing. He is playing fantastic rugby so why would you dump him?
When someone has been good enough they have got into the team, look at Hansen/McCarthy etc....players that most people wouldn't have picked but Farrell did it.....
The issue I find is people just want XYZ picked because they have a soft spot for that player. Then expect them to suddenly become an incredibel players once "they get some minutes" which is not really how it works.
A case in point that took me about 5 seconds to find. They're even talking about making a special exemption for him to continue playing for NZ while being based abroad despite the fact he's 32.
Is this a "one liner knockout" game or something??
Your doing zero to develop any argument to back up your opinion. Maybe because you know it's an incorrect one??
I mean, some of them have won knockout games in their history.
We've never won a knockout game at the World Cup
We won a grand slam 7 months ago, I reckon its going fine.
No other serious rugby nation would be doing this.
I’d wager the exact opposite of this is true.
There isn’t a serious rugby nation in the world who would discard a player playing the best rugby of their career, to the point they’ve been nominated for World Player of the Year, even if they are 33.
while i would agree in theory, it also is a good idea to keep him around for the first year/two years of this cycle while the 10(s) gain further experience, given the unfortunate injury profiles that GR and RH have
If the World Cup is all that matters (and that’s what you seem to be heavily implying here), I presume we won’t hear any criticism or negativity from you around performances / results etc in the meantime.
Right?
yep, every country bar the world cup winners are doing everything wrong every single year. sure why bother even playing the game at all?
Ah, this classic trope.
We haven't succeeded, therefore by definition anything we do differently is the right move. This is, obviously, not correct. You also haven't countered the point that this is not something any of the other successful teams does either.
like i said, mentioning RWC 27 is a complete waste of breath. it is not a factor to be considered at all.
Because what we've been doing has worked so well
Absolutely. He's 37 at the World Cup
Planning today around what will be taking place 4 years from now is just the height of folly. None of those players might be anywhere near the squad (I highly doubt Frawley will for one).
There is not a team on the planet that essentially fires all their 30+ old players the day after a world cup, the obsession among some that Ireland should do it is ridiculous.
So let's get this straight,you want to dump one of our best players who's just been nominated for world player of the year? For an unproven youngster who may or may not come good in time for 2027? More complete nonsense from you
For goodness sake don't bring common sense into it. Things like logic have no place here.
