Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I honestly don't know what you're being so precious about - it's a fairly common sporting saying in Ireland (and the UK I think) to describe players who notably don't have good ball handling skills.

I don't think it's a remotely unfair characterisation of him and his game. It very clearly was a notable weakness in his game once upon a time, which I'll admit has improved (though still likely to a lower level than the guys he's competing with).

By all means claim the moral high ground here though all you like.

Thornley also suggested Henshaw and Frawley might come into the team.

If Frawley does start we can expect a big blowback to that, given how poor he was on Friday night. It looks like it was probably always the plan to give him this game as a start.

I'm not convinced in Frawley as a 10 at all, and have said as much on here plenty of times, but would say it wasn't his cameo on Friday night that changed my thinking. On Friday he looked like a guy who was rushed back in too quickly (having been out since the Connacht game when he left early, injured), and made a number of silly errors at things we know he can competently do - passing the ball and catch uncontested high balls. He kicked poorly from hand too IMO largely.

Some of those moments (similar to Jack Crowley's knock on) stick in the memory of fans and get unfairly referenced and highlighted IMO.

I'm critical of Frawley as a 10 because I think he struggles to give consistent direction and shape to the team. He's capable of good moments in attack (he's a good passer and carrier), but I struggle to think of an 80 min performance from him as a commanding 10. I think he just lacks the vision I want in a 10. I hope I'm wrong on this.

If we were all as reasonable as you, Podge, maybe I wouldn’t be as “precious”…

Goodman's appointment worries me tbh. It was a constant struggle to identify at times what way Leinster were trying to attack under him, and I felt the core skill level of our players declined and our attack declined when he was at the helm. I think we've already looked more cohesive this year under Bleyendaal's coaching.

You'd imagine Mike Catt would have his pick of jobs in world rugby given how fluid and sharp the Irish attack looked under him.

Give Goodman time, he will get things ironed out. I recall concern around Catt's role after a few games with a misfiring attack.

Yep, that's fair. I wouldn't typically be on a coach's back after one poor performance, but as I mentioned, I did think Leinster's attack was relatively misfiring too when he was responsible for steering it.

It's more difficult to get a backline moving when 1) there are so many handling, and unforced errors, particularly early in phase play and 2) your tight 5 are coming off 2nd best at ruck time.

I think it's also fair to point out that he (and others) were also clearly tasked with kicking contestables more frequently than we previously have done, something I thought he did well.

…but, naturally, his poorest days have come against the better standard teams he's faced (England, South Africa & New Zealand).

I'd also point that against France, he was excellent. He's shown he can do it against high calibre opposition.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think both 10's struggled on Friday night, but we lost the game up front fundamentally.

I'm a fan of Crowley, I think he's a good player and I still have him as our #1 choice 10. For me, I'm hoping Sam Prendergast emerges over the next 12 months or so to challenge Crowley, and I would rather see Leinster prioritise him in the 10 shirt.

It does look like Farrell is a big fan of Frawley though.

The fact is Leinster have 5 tens taking turns playing 12 and sitting on their asses while Connacht and Ulster are forced to beg kiwis up to Ireland. If the Irfu put Ireland first these 10s sitting on their asses would be forced to play and earn their money. Amazing the worker power at Leinster you wouldnt get in any company but Irfu aren't putting Ireland first.

I don't think anyone anywhere claimed Frawley did improve things. There is pretty much unanimous universal consensus that Frawley played poorly on Friday night.

That said - Crowley was also quite poor. Both of those things can be (and are in this case) true. Not every comment has to be taken as a perceived sleight on him or his ability.

How was crowley poor though? Aside from one knock on he was fine. Not great but not poor either. He was strong in defence and he put up plenty of contestables which was clearly our gameplan. We only went beyond 3 phases once in the first half and four times in the second. Whilst that is partially down to handling errors it's clear that we looked to target NZ in the air with the new kick chase interpretation.

Crowley was fine and suggestions that he was poor are nothing more than scapegoating. He wasn't responsible for his teammates knock ons and he certainly wasn't responsible for our pack's inability to protect our own ball at the breakdown. It's amazing that he's coming under so much scrutiny considering we have second rows who can't win their own ball at lineout time or clear out a ruck (but I'm told that's purely coaching despite Leinster being 9th and 10th in lineout success over the last two seasons in the league) and a hooker who's great in the loose but fast becoming a liability at set piece time.

Ireland lost due to a number of reasons on Friday but Jack Crowley wasn't one of them. Indeed, we were leading when Farrell called him ashore. The cynic in me believes that the disproportionate scrutiny his performance has received is nothing more than an attempt to distract from a number of poor performances from some of his more celebrated teammates. Crowley was our starting fly half in a championship victory yet despite achieving this in less than a year as a front line international some people are already looking to jettison him for the shiny new toy, a fella with less than 25 provincial starts. It would be funny if it weren't so painfully familiar and predictable.

No, he was poor. I'm not singling him out by saying that, I think roughly 11 or 12 out of 15 (and all of the bench) were poor too. He was fine in defence for me, and, yeah clearly some of the kicking was gameplan driven, but Farrell's comments today on the performance of both 10s suggests that not all of it was.

Farrell said:

“Game-management is not just down to them, it’s down to others helping with the calls and seeing the space,” said Farrell of his inexperienced outhalves. “But, having said that, if you are playing you would expect yourself to hold on to the ball for more than a couple of phases, which we didn’t do at times.”

So he is clearly putting it on them the fact that we failed to go through the phases more. Obviously some of the reasons we didn't was because of handling errors etc, but there is a clear implication from him in that statement that he was unhappy with the performance of both 10s in steering the attack.

That's why to me - you can't just attribute Crowley's failure to get the attack moving either to just gameplan.