Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Interestingly, we have so much depth at lock that we're playing our best one in the back row. Kleyn would be somewhere in the mix with the other four or five guys vying for a place in the wider squad, so I guess he would add depth in the strictest sense of the word.

Yes, centre is so well stocked that Frisch wouldn't have been anywhere near the squad. We left Henshaw and McCloskey out of the 23 completely and they're twice the players Frisch is.

If ireland somehow let slip some IQ props or half-backs, come back to me.

We are building depth, we're just not building it with the players you want to be picked.

What I said was "we'll never have the same depth as our main rivals", and that isn't a particularly contentious statement.

Where things went wrong is that you picked one decent-ish and one bang-average player, in the positions where we have the most depth and a good supply of young players, as evidence that we're not doing enough.

If you'd said we should have rewarded Murphy's early season form and picked him ahead of Murray, I'd say fine, fair point. If you'd said Frawley is never a test-level 10 and Prendergast should have benched, I'd have wholeheartedly agreed with you. If you'd said Healy is way too old and we should just chuck Boyle (or indeed anyone else in) and see what happens, result be damned, I'd have seen your point. If you'd said Lowe/VDF/Aki won't make the next RWC and should be moved on, I'd also have seen your point, even if I wouldn't have made wholesale changes.

But you didn't, you just defaulted to Kleyn and Frisch, one of whom is a) 31 and b) no improvement over what we have and the other of whom wouldn't get anywhere near the squad.

Thats a ridiculous under estimation of Frisch, its no coincidence that Munsters defence has capitulated again without him, its the third time its happened. Once when he left with emerging Ireland, once when he got injured and now again when he left for France. Outside of that he's now made two French squads in a row, which is an outrageous achievement considering their depth. It also misses that we are stacked at 12 and Frisch spent two years playing 13 for Munster. He was quite clearly the second best 13 in the country for those two years and couldn't even make a training squad.

If Carbery was so badly treated, maybe that’s why Munster sacked Rowntree?

Would agree here, Frisch was a great player. Super defence and always looking to offload out of the tackle (sometimes a bit too much but I reckon that was the instruction). He had one slight dip in form one of his seasons but I'd agree, mad he couldn't make a training squad.

I still think this is a valid post as I think a good number of players from this list won't be around in 2027

Where did we get the notion that France have all the answers anyway?

They’ve massively underperformed to a far larger extent than we have. They have more depth than any country in world rugby and they’ve won one 6N in the past 14 years ffs.

People posting “France would have picked different players than us” - so what exactly?

Completely agree with this post.

Lots to moan about in terms of older players being moved on but frisch and Kline are not the answers imo to any of the questions we need to ask ourselves.

For what it's worth, id like to see a changing of the guard.

Pom, Henderson and Healy should go back and play for provinces and if they are the form players let them come back into contention.

Murray and Bundi are also getting on a bit but I would argue that their provincial form has merited inclusion at present.

It's a little unfortunate that Ahern and Baird have had Injuries and haven't hit top gear afterwards but izzi looks like he wouldnt let us down.