Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

One would hope the management team would pick players that provide Ireland with the best chance of success at the next world cup. Not becusse their afraid of a few negative comments about them on social media.

Realistically, Ireland should have parted company with Farrell after the world cup. Eight years as a head coach is an awfully long time in sport.

Zero to do with depth - our first choice 15 lost us that match.

there was a lot of errors and the usual reasons for this are a lack of skill, lack of experience or a lack of confidence.

that team has skill and had lots of experience so it must have been a lack of confidence and what is the main reason for a lack of confidence - a fear of failure. A fear of failure meaning letting yourself down or letting someone close to you down.

Sexton had no business being involved and was an unnecessary circus. Especially What pressure must Crowley and Frawley been feeling all week to win this game.

A very bad call by Farrell.

All the penalties we gave away before they came on, are something to do with them.

LOL…..

Correct, and we never will.

We will never, ever, be able to produce players in the quantities that our main rivals do; SA, NZ, England, France are always going to have to more players than us so we have to make the best of what we have. Likewise, we're never going to have a giant pack unless we start shipping in Samoan and Georgian teenagers in significant numbers.

That said, our lack of depth is a major issue. It's true that the replacements on Friday night didn't lose us the game, but they certainly didn't improve things. We were actually leading by a point when Herring, TOT, Henderson and Frawley came on, but their contributions ranged from anonymous to terrible. TOT gets a pass, obviously. If what you want is impact from the bench, then we got zero (zero positive impact, anyway).

I've no idea why Osborne only got ten minutes when he is a guy who can make things happen. Likewise if POM is there for his leadership and 'dog', bringing him on with ten minutes to go and the game slipping away is probably a bit late, so Farrell carries the can for those two I think.

I think the performance on Friday was a mixture of our lack of depth being exposed, a lot of players having possibly their worst display in a long time and a few mis-steps from Farrell. I would expect the latter two to be resolved next week, but the lack of depth is something we'll have to live with really.