Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Coombes. He is good. I don't think he is international quality and he loses out to POM, Cian Prendergast and Timoney for a place in extended squads which speaks volumes now. His URC stats are largely irrelevant at international level.

Tom Ahern should be ahead of Henderson now IMO.

Kleyn made his choices. Likewise frisch. Neither were ever likely to be mainstays. His just exposes Munster for the malaise of 5-20 years ago around academy and player development.

"Hands like a pair of tits" is just not true of Kleyn any more. It's just not. (I'd go as far as suggesting he's less prone to a handling error than Joe McCarthy has seemed for us of late).

Are you claiming here Kleyn has better handling skills than Joe McCarthy? McCarthy touches the ball far more than Kleyn - he's a far more impactful carrier and is used to link play more often. Kleyn almost never does either because he's pretty poor at both. The absence of a large volume of handling errors is precisely because of his weakness there - he's rarely used to handle the ball.

As far as I'm aware Munster operated with the quickest ruck ball under 3 seconds of any team in the URC the season they won it. Kleyn was a large part of that.

Do you've any source for this?

The system fit is also overstated imo

Why do you think Kleyn, Haley, Coombes etc aren't being selected if it isn't because the coaches don't think they're a systemic fit?

NB - having re-read, I realise that the chat is about non-provincial moving, so feel free to ignore.

For a moderator on the forum - this is as blatant an example of making something provincial and into the endless Leinster-Munster doom spirals this place goes into as you'll see.

Don't make sweeping statements if you're not going to back them up.

I have criticised plenty of Leinster players on plenty of occasions. I'm not being overly critical of any of the Munster (or ex-Munster players) I discussed in the thread above either - I simply pointed out why I think it's likely Jean Kleyn wasn't selected by the Irish coaches.

I asked you to give your reason for why you feel they didn't pick him, but you've declined to do so.

I didn’t make any sweeping statements.

No, I don’t have a reference for the ruck speed stat. I am pretty certain I heard it on several podcasts that season, but I’m not going to pore thru hours of material for a specific reference when it’s obvious to everyone that Munster’s ruck speed significantly improved that season, due to the type of game they wanted to play, and Kleyn was a big part of that. All of that is accurate, and doesn’t at all change my substantive point.

Yes, you have criticised plenty of Leinster players. But never as pejoratively as “hands like a pair of tits”. That’s the difference.

As for why Farrell didn’t pick him? I dont’t know and I think Farrell got it wrong. I’d have picked him. You’d have picked him.

Nor, would you believe, am I. But it’s axiomatic that they rate the other players more highly for the system they want. There’s also cohesion considerations, time to learn the systems etc.

Yet, I don’t see what your point is other than an appeal to authority; I still think they got it wrong.

They lost 5 of those 7 games games in the opening fixtures when the new coaching ticket, and attack, was bedding in. That was before a pure….. marquee game… vs SA that changed the course of our season when things started to click.

They played with very quick ball, high numbers of passes per phase, and with lots of width, meaning a high distance between rucks. And, I’m certain, a really low ruck speed.

Kleyn was an important part of all of that. I’m pretty sure he won our player of the season award.

Being a journeyman has nothing to do with distance travelled.

Bundee Aki came 10,000 miles to play and is not a journeyman. People like Ross Molony or Stephen Archer who spend years in one place without ever excelling are journeymen.

Just if people are going to find certain terms provocative, it might be less so if they understood them.

Is it the case that the model of central contracts which has been essential for the platform of success also has its downsides as most players decide when to go which seems to be longer than required in some cases.

Not at all true; I think Timoney has been unlucky not to see more gametime over the last number of years, and McCann unlucky not to be included more in squads more recently.

I think Cian Prendergast should see more gametime over the next few weeks, have been very impressed with him this season.

I’ve said I expected Hansen to come back in for Nash. I’m sure there’s more.

But yes, I’m going to be more vocal about guys from the province I support when I think they’re incorrectly described as having “hands like tits”.

The difference is, I don’t describe any player like that.