Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Neither were left out of a championship decider..

Farrell has backed himself into a corner with this captain decision and he will probably stick with him again. And whip him off after 50 minutes again.

It's interesting to note that Conan has actually been brought on ahead of Baird in the last 2 games so might not have beem a straight swap baird for pom anyway.

Whats interesting about next week is that with both frawley and Nash failing HIA's, that most likely means both are out with a 7 day turnaround. With that situation, the 6/2 split might be gone, and we are back to a 5/3. In which case Larmour is most likely to start on the right wing with Harry byrne and ringrose on the bench.

Next year if Doak playes more 10 for Ulster he might be an option for a 6/2 split covering 9 and 10 ?

We're still going to beat Scotland and win the championship.

I echo others about watching Ireland in the mid 90's and getting thrashed all the time. Been enjoying watching Ireland a lot over the last while with all the wins and success.

We've got some amazing young talent that will be integrated over the next few years. Reckon we'll win a couple of more championships before the next WC and and finally get past the QF in it.

Looking forward to seeing what the constant moaners have to complain about when Ireland beat SA on the tour later this year.

Great player is a stretch. Honest pro, yes, great player, no.

Poor display from Ireland overall. England deserved to win, which is hard to stomach.

I thought Keenan was poor. But POM and Murray were very poor. Insane to kick the ball with 80 seconds to go and not trust the forwards for such a short window. Murray cost us an undeserved victory.

They weren't that far from the English half to be fair, at some point you have to just acknowledge that the defence from the English lineout a fair distance out was abysmal.

A few extra metres wouldn't have made much a difference because Kelleher and especially Lowe royally fucked up their defensive reads on the return.

At some stage Farrell is going to have to build for 2027 , the longer he puts that off the worse for Ireland

i know many won’t agree with me but our age profile is not great. lowe aki and Gibson park will 35 in 2027, that’s 3 of our best players.

My takes

1. That was way worse a performance than v New Zealand. Although we didn't have much possession, when we did, we kicked it away. Most egregious was just outside their 22, we kicked a high ball. We never backed ourselves to hold on and exert pressure.

2. We don't have many natural leaders in the team. That showed yesterday.

3. We're so reliant on Keenan at 15 that we should think hard about a 6-2 split ever again.