Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

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In the Jean Kleyn thread, when someone suggested

You replied with:

Which begs the question, if Scott Barrett hadn't held up Kelleher, presumably you would think Farrell is world class / coach of the year material? That's how it works?

It's almost like reducing arguments of any context and nuance to "he/they won/lost" is overly simplistic...

Borthwick clearly used the 6N block to prepare for the World Cup because of how little time he had to prepare. Who cares about a warm up game. They hammered Argentina with 14 men, topped their group, beat Fiji when it mattered in the quarters, pushed SA to the absolute brink in the semis, and beat Argentina again to come 3rd, massively exceeding everyone's expectations of them.

Rawalui got Fiji out of a group containing Wales and Australia to make the quarter finals. Maybe not a massive surprise but still a very good World Cup for Fiji.

Nienabar. Won the World Cup. Don't think that one needs explaining.

Cheika. Probably the most questionable on this list, sure. But made the semis, beating Wales who were favourites in that game.

Foster. Out-coached Farrell in the quarter final. Hammered Argentina in the semis and was a whisker away from winning the whole thing. Hardly needs much explaining.

Lagisquet. Portugal were expected to lose every game. But drew with Georgia and beat quarter finalists Fiji, massively exceeding expectations.

All of these coach's teams exceeded expectations more than Farrell's Ireland

The champions could only beat the same team by a single point, despite having an extra man for 50% of the game (accounting for 2 SA yellows).

Sometimes the margins are just so small and you end up on the wrong side of it. It doesn't mean there's something structurally wrong.

I'm also sure that anyone who actually works in or around the highest levels of the pro sport in Ireland would not have viewed that game as "the only one that mattered".

So Borthwick in the running for world coach of the year because his team got to the semi final according to one poster.

But his team is so shite that Irelands grand slam can be discounted according to another.

I think Cooney was actually ahead of Blade at the time. Marmion was still first choice, but the other two were pretty close to eachother. In the 2016 final Cooney was on the bench. He was generally getting picked ahead of Blade in 2016. The three of them was probably the best depth that any province has had at 9 for a while.

You're right about the move being for 1st team rugby. That was definitely a benefit to ireland in terms of having more game time going to our 4 best 9s.

South Africa won their 3 knockout games by a point. They also had a tight game in the group against us that they lost.

You telling me it’s all just small margins and random variance that they got on the right side of the 3 of those that actually mattered but not the one that didn’t?

That’s head in the sand stuff.

I mean... clearly, yes, they could very easily have been on the other side of any of those 3 matches. That is the literal implication of a 1-point margin.

On the balance of probability, you'd have to say that if those 3 matches were played again, at least one of them would likely go the other way.