Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

—his career has been pretty unspectacular up to now.

• Winner of 2016 u20 world championship where he led Ireland to the final, beating the all blacks in the process.
• Started in multiple URC semi finals
• 103 appearances for Leinster with long injuries in between.
• 2 caps for Ireland, 3 caps for Ireland B.
• most lineout steals in URC this season.
• 2 tries, 35 tackles, 34 carries, 4 clean breaks so far.

the reason deegan has to play is that Ireland don’t have another effective line out option outside of O’Mahony. The problem I have with playing O’Mahony is that he’s already played any minutes of rugby and he doesn’t have the same speed and fitness as deegan.

I know Sam is big for an outhalf. And I know he is our new messiah. But I think packing down at 4/6 off the bench against NZ is beyond even his capabilities.

Ah who am I kidding, he'd smash it.

It would be kinder just to donate that money to a charity rather than throw it away.

I’ve thought for a while that Peter is being retained for his soft skills and leadership, that’s one of the few areas where the current team is less than fully optimised. Doris and Beirne are growing into it but we’ve seen a number of occasions where for periods of a match things become aimless and the lack of an extrovert old head (like Johnny, POM, etc) can contribute to looseness creeping in. We have no shortage of 6s, and without discounting POMs lineout prowess, that’s his big point of difference from those who can take his place on the panel.

I understand why coaches will disagree with you here. Veteran international's form comes and goes but these sorts of players have proven repeatedly that they can deliver in green and that is grounds for confidence that they can do it again. I don't know how many times POM has been written off and the literally won matches for Ireland, same goes for Henshaw who has come straight back from injury and delivered more than once. Who people talk about credit in the bank they are talking about this quality in player who have been around the block. There are some capped players who really fall off over time (Marty and Stockade come to mind) but with stalwarts of the team over years and years certain assumptions can be made about the floor of their contributions, and its pretty high. From a coaches pov these spots are never wasted on veterans.

Provincial form doesn't matter when it comes to Irish selection, but Jesus Christ is Andy Farrell going to have to work his magic with Crowley and to a lesser extent Tadhg Beirne. They're struggling so much with Munster.