Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Says who?

The utter stupidity of that analogy beggars belief - comparing two guys who play the literal same position is comparable apparently to comparing a scrum half and a tight head prop?

carrying almost twice as many times 

So volume matters? 😉

Look, I don’t think either of them had an especially standout game.

If McCarthy goes on to have half the career Etzebeth has had (and I think he will) we’ll have a serious player on our hands.

Ah he didn't have a fine game. He had little enough impact generally and made some poor errors. Stripped by Smith in the opening minute, gave away an avoidable penalty and then dropped a lineout just before being taken off. He got around the park but there was a noticeable difference in aggression from Ryan when he entered proceedings.

If McCarthy had been playing better, he wouldn't have been removed after 49 minutes.

Agreed. Neither had games they'll be particularly happy with. Etzebeth was poor considering he's probably the best in the world. Mostert and Beirne were comfortably the best locks on the park.

They absolutely don't - the South Africans typically use Etzebeth as a carrier. He's a huge physical player, it's absolutely a part of his game, he just didn't have a good game carrying on Saturday.

You can't point to anything of note that Etzebeth did in the game on Saturday, and you're the one who felt the need to wade into this argument that didn't originally involve you. You have nothing to back up your piece but invisible ruck stats, from a game in which SA didn't have any noticeably more effective rucking than we did.

You either don't watch enough of him play, or you don't know what you're looking at. He's had some massive performances for Leinster this year, entirely independent of his carrying. He's hugely powerful and physical, is an excellent maul defender, and has effected lots of turnovers and steals over the course of the season.

You show your true colours by your consistent effort to highlight his "deficiencys" (sic), without giving him any credit for the multitude of things he's very very good at.

I'm done with this pointless circular argument either way.

u mean the Irish scrum where they didn’t take impact and tried to get away with giving a free kick instead if penalty.u sir have no idea what u talking about

You're twisting arguments again and trying to claim something I didn't say - I didn't for a second attempt to claim McCarthy is a better player (or even remotely close to) Eben Etzebeth. I said McCarthy had the arguably more effective game of the two of them on Saturday - that was the statement you originally took exception to, but haven't given anything to support your view.

Case closed lads. South Africa investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing.

Being serious though, they're an awful set up. Having a 'law specialist' give press conferences saying how great they are, just further emboldens them to push their lies in the media.