Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I wouldn't be surprised if Rassie brings in 4 or so new players. Jenkins could be a possibility too. That squad is fairly long in the tooth.

For Ireland, Osbourne should get his 1st cap. He's shown enough to warrant inclusion. Ahern also should get a look.

That’s quite a childish and entitled post. It’s the type of post I’d expect to see someone who got into the sport in the last few years make who hasn’t seen the continuous gradual progress we’ve made over the last 25 years (wait for the inevitable ‘what progress, we’ve never won a WC QF’ post)

What’s wrong with seeing your national team be successful? Did you enjoy the 2022 NZ tour series? Do you think the senior players regretted going on that tour or that the coaches wished they hadn’t brought Murray, POM, Healy, Earls and Sexton in hindsight after the WC QF?

Do you think that if we send the strongest selection possible to test ourselves against the WC winners in their own backyard that we will look back at this if as a huge chance lost if we don’t win the 2027 WC?

What’s wrong with feeling good about your national team? ‘We’ll feel great again’? We’re back to back 6N winners and came close to doing back to back slams this year. Why the negativity?

Win and it means nothing. Lose and we’re rubbish. Some people will never be happy.

If we had also played a developmental team in that game 18 years ago (I presume you’re talking about the 2006 game), do you think it would have made any difference to our performance in the 2007 WC?

Interestingly enough we sent a developmental team to Argentina in June 2007 and lost both tests and didn’t even make it to a QF.

Im utterly staggered that a series win in RSA is thought of as a 'meh, but what about the WC' by some posters.

We won the tournament we competed in this year but lost to England in the process. Do you think the Irish players will want to avenge that defeat at the next available opportunity?

‘Awful’ comparison? Think you’re being a bit hyperbolic there.

Regardless I have no doubt that SA will ‘want to fúck us up’ to use Rassie Erasmus’ words seeing as they haven’t beaten us since 2016 regardless of their great success since.

SA lost to us in a pool game and then won each of their three knockout games by a single point each.

They were incredibly lucky, and it would be madness to try to link any single act in their preparation to be the cause of their success and even madder to try to copy them and expect similar results.