Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Do you genuinely believe the lessons have just been brushed over by the players and coaching team? Where is the evidence for that? What is said in the media and what is said in camp are two very different things.

You can be sure the coaches will have studied what went wrong and look to rectify that. The line out for one was a relative disaster for us all tournament and led to one of their tries in the first half after we lost an attacking line out around halfway and again in the second half where we got cut open defensively on first phase ball. They’re the margins at the top level.

Did South Africa buckle to the pressure against us in the group stages? Did NZ buckle to the pressure in the final? Does every team who loses a game buckle to the pressure?

The fact that they are a squad of players who have improved significantly as a team since they came together under Farrell and his coaching team in 2019 indicates to me that they are able to analyse weaknesses in their gameplan and performances, and improve them over time. One narrow defeat doesn’t change that for me.

I’m sure they’re a lot harder on themselves than we are as they wouldn’t be at that level of professions sports if they weren’t. And yes, I don’t think professional sports people are completely honest with the media.

What is your evidence that this group of players and management haven’t learned any lessons from the tournament?

Oh my god not this absolute nonsense again.

Literally nobody has ever said that every team who does not win the World Cup is a failure. But sure keep making this stupid strawman argument instead of actually facing facts.

I didn’t call them liars. I said every sports person isn’t completely honest with the media. That’s pretty universal throughout sports. And life actually. It’s like telling your parents you’re grand when you’re stressed with work issues. Does that make me a liar?

I didn’t deflect anything. I said that I thought our lineout issues were a key failing all through the World Cup and cost us two scores and the game against NZ. It was also poor in every other game aside from Scotland who didn’t compete against us. Is that pressure (also evident against Romania and Tonga and the warm ups) or a system failure which we didn’t rectify?

Sexton missed a kick he should have got. Not every kick missed is a pressure issue. We played ‘tight’ but put together 37 phases at the end which got us 60 metres up the pitch. Do NZ deserve any credit in stiffing our attacking game?

‘We need to stop lying to ourselves and face up to the reality of it’ : are you referring to us on boards or the squad and management team itself?

38 year old Sexton barely running at the end of a game where the ball was in play for 42 minutes due to pressure and not age/fatigue in a tournament where the average ball in play time was 34.18 is an interesting take.

Safe to say we are not going to agree on this topic. I was disappointed like everyone here that we couldn’t bring the trophy home but our feelings pale in comparison to the coaches and players who spent years building up to the tournament. I have no doubt they will assess what didn’t go their way and try to rectify it going on as they have over the last 4 years when things haven’t gone our way.

Also take any media soundbites from sports players with a pinch of salt. There is nothing to gain for them by going into any deep detail, only controversy and further questions.

The future is bright for Irish rugby.

I think those past issues won't be a factor simply because, the players coming into the environment have won u20 grand slams and reached a u20 world cup final. Overall, we're in a good place. Consider where we were when Farrell came in!

This past world cup showed me that depth wise were still a little short. It was always going to be hard to lean on a 37 year old out half. This cycle, we have players coming up that win and win consistently.

so what is it? Are they always telling the truth so? Are you just choosing that which suits your viewpoint? Professional sportspeople do media training and rarely say much of actual interest. It’s all a nonsense. We don’t really ever get to hear or see what’s really said or done behind closed doors because in actual fact it’s none of our business. They throw a few crumbs to keep the journos happy. Anyone not in those camps who thinks they know what way the players feel based on a couple of tweets is just kidding themselves.

Get over it lads.