Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I agree with this but Farrell is very consistent in his selections and I do not see how both can make the 23 after POM has been named as captain. There will almost certainly be 7 players (5 starters + 2 subs) in the matchday squad who cover the back 5 of the scrum.

POM is a locked in as captain, VDF is locked in as the only openside in the squad, Doris is locked in as he's Doris, Ryan and Beirne are locked in because they have been Farrell's pairing for years and both are playing well.

That leaves 2 from Conan, Henderson, Beirne and McCarthy to be selected. Henderson started the QF against NZ and he had an excellent RWC. I'm not really convinced Farrell cares about provincial form. Conan's place might be vulnerable as he's not as established as the rest, but assuming everyone is fit I do not see any realistic prospect of both McCarthy and Baird making the 23. Who does he leave out? And we're talking here about what Farrell will likely do, not what we'd do.

And for the record, Farrell has the overwhelming benefit of the doubt at the moment imo.

Farrell was largely experimental in the "friendlies", and I'd expect him to do similar over the next 12 months. As the RWC got closer, he naturally settled on a squad and the era for experimentation was over.

But from his first games in Feb 2020 through to the RWC, he gave debuts to all of:

Caelan Doris, Ronan Kelleher, Max Deegan, Hugo Keenan, Will Connors, Ed Byrne, Jamison Gibson Park, James Lowe, Billy Burns, Shane Daly, Eric O'Sullivan, Ryan Baird, Craig Casey, Gavin Coombes, Rob Baloucoune, James Hume, Tom O'Toole, Nick Timoney, Paul Boyle, Fineen Wycherley, Caolin Blade, Dan Sheehan, Mack Hansen, Michael Lowry, Jimmy O'Brien, Jeremy Loughman, Jack Crowley, Cian Prendergast and Joe McCarthy.

That's 30 players. Of that group, 8 went on to amass over 20 caps, and 14 went to the RWC. We only have c. 160 or so pro players in the whole country, so I don't know how there's a credible argument that he wasn't experimental.

The draw for the 2027 RWC will take place in Jan 2026. This is a departure from previous, where only one year post RWC was given to change seeding (and last time effectively no time was given as even though the draw took place in Dec 2020, it was based on Jan 2020 rankings because of COVID).

So the next two 6 Nations, the summer tour to SA, wherever we tour in summer 2025 (during a Lions tour, so likely a softer tour, with minimal ranking points to be gained) and the 2025 Autumn Internationals are all in the window where our ranking can be disrupted.

The argument you hear is they need the maximum time period to sell tickets. You've only got a few countries really in the world who are contenders, and they're on opposite sides of the world. Therefore travelling for European sides for example to SA, Aus or NZ for a RWC is a pretty big financial commitment, and vice versa. Allied to that - the tournament takes a long time.

World Rugby seem to think giving more time to get fixtures / cities etc gives people more opportunity to plan and increases the likelihood people will buy expensive packages to travel to games.

Rugby doesn't have the global popularity of football, so the tickets can be harder to shift.

POM is definitely starting at 6. They don’t typically pick guys with any doubt of starting.

I don’t really see the point of starting someone over him (or any other player) before they actually win the job. Maybe, 2 years before a world cup i’d think about that, maybe.

I’d be in favour of stuff like having larger training squads, capture capping guys who could leave, and other relatively small things. However, you actually have to win jobs. That’s fine.

How does one win the job? We have a number of 6s in brilliant form