Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Nonsense. We lost a QF by a single score to New Zealand.

He has overall, been a huge success

How is that on Nucifora?

His job isn’t to pick the team, he’s not the mental skills coach and he can’t play the matches.

His job was to put in the best position possible to win the RWC. We entered the tournament as one of the favourites to win, as (deservedly) #1 team in the world and went into our quarter final as favourites to beat NZ.

To repeat: An Ireland team were favourites in a World Cup game against New Zealand.

I can’t believe people need to be convinced that the guy was a success.

Munster won URC last year

Leinster in 5th European final in 7 seasons

Connacht getting redevelopment in sports grounds

Ulster Are not in a great place atm but there is some green shoots there

Womens game has turned a corner. Long way to go but there is signs of progress.

Sevens programmes are going well

U20s have been going great the last few years

Leinster sold 170000 tickets for 3 games in 5 weeks recently.

Do the IRFU get everything right. No absolutely not. But Rugby as a sport has grown exponentially in the minds of people in the last few years. When Sexton said "we lost, but we won' he was referring to the bigger picture of the sport here. That bigger picture is the long term growth of interest in the sport.

Differing opinions!!! Lots of DN fans here. I'm happy that ye all think he was a success! My opinion is he wasn't as successful as he should have been. He was imo, a mixed bag. I'm hoping Humphreys does well.

Keenan should be playing for Leinster. I wish him well. I think it's ****. Just an opinion.

Bundee is an interesting one… just turned 34. It's hard to think he'll be as effective as he can be next season and I feel the trajectory won't be anything else but downwards soon just because of his abrasive style. Maybe he'll maintain his current level of form but I do wonder when looking beyond him… who is going to replace him? He's been comfortably our best centre in recent years

Lowe and him are our physical presence in the backs and both are pushing on (I know Lowe is only 32 soon but he has his health issues). Henshaw has a lot of miles under his clock too. Big Stu is 32 in August.

I just think it makes for interesting pondering in terms of the style of game we play that a lot of the current more physical cabs on the rank are moving towards their twilight years.

Second row, back row, half backs… I think we're well stocked and you can see a decent succession plan with the players coming through. I'm not seeing it at centre (yet)

He is a failure. He's done some good with 7's. But he never got to his goals. He probably stayed too long. If you all think he transformed the landscape, good. I'd grade him a C.

You can literally say that about practically anything or anyone in sport or life.

Irish rugby as a whole is in a far better place now compared to 10-15 years ago.

Like, what exactly was he not successful at? By no means has he got everything right, or has every target been achieved, but that's not an outright indication of failure either.

It's easy to fire shots from the sidelines when you don't have to take responsibility for a decision made, or the ramifications of it.

Ultimately a lot of areas of the game are in far better position now compared to 10 years ago. DN, IRFU have made mistakes, got things wrong along the way but have you seen the state of other sporting bodies in this country?