Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

This is my take.

It's incredibly harsh to criticise the 10's for a lack of game management when there are this many handling errors, turnovers, inaccuracies and penalties being given away elsewhere, to the point that we went over 3 phases only once in the 1st half and 4 times in the 2nd.

It's almost impossible to have any continuity or game management in that context.

My point makes perfect sense, you just don’t agree with it.

If you think Crowley played well and there’s nothing to discuss, that’s fine, but I’d say you’re in a minority of two - and the other guy is not Andy Farrell, so I think it’s relevant to discuss. It’s made even more relevant by the abject performance of the guy who replaced him.

I’ve said it about ten times now, the next level for Crowley is showing he can turn a game around. We haven’t seen that yet, we certainly didn’t see it on Friday, and until we do, the discussion is going to keep coming up.

One area where Crowley needs to improve on from last weekend is his contestable kicking. They were just that bit too long and left the chaser flapping at the ball with a hand rather than actually getting under it.

Happened a lot of restarts when Keenan was chasing, but was never in a realistic position to catch it. Especially when he was jumping against 6'5 Jordie Barrett.

We won a few pens from New Zealand blocking our chasers run so we know we can kick good contestables. Just wasn't done frequently enough.

Completely disagree tbh. I had a look back at his contestables. (Fwiw, Frawley had an awful attempt at one that lead to a NZ try, iirc)

Just because we don't win the ball back doesn't mean it's a poor kick.

I've learned this isn't an appeal to authority, so here goes, this was echoed on Second Captains:

Simon Hick: I thought [Crowley's] kicks wide and high were quite good, it’s just that the NZ fielding was quite good too. 

Thornley: It was excellent, they were brilliant in the air. 

Hick: Quite a few re-starts.. 

Thornley: Were brilliant 

If you believe the guy needs the ball on a silver platter to play well - and that’s your assertion, not mine

I suggest you go back and re-read my post, which I've added to, because this is not at all what I was asserting. For example:

I understand arguments like "he needs to do it behind a pack going backwards, or off dirty slow ball". But we weren't even getting that, because we were turning it over so much.

My argument isn't that he needs it on a silver platter. My argument is that he wasn't even getting dirty or slow ball. In fact, he wasn't getting any ball.

As evidenced by the fact that….. we only went over 3 phases once in the first half. That's shocking.

He had 5 re-starts:

• 3 of them were really good with excellent hang-time for Keenan to compete, landing just outside the 22, exactly as intended
• 1 went wider toward the 5m line, Lowe was prevented from competing and we won a penalty.
• 1 was a touch too long, not allowing for a contest, but Keenan was able to tackle immediately when the ball was gathered.

I think you're way off on this one, Clegg.

I was a bit surprised Ireland went for exactly the same restart kick every (?) time. If you're kicking you have the advantage of knowing beforehand where the ball's going. And the opposition can only tell just before the kick by the kicker's body shapes. But if they go same place all the time there's no element of surprise, no need for NZ to adjust on the fly. Once NZ demonstrated they were dealing with that kick well would it have been better to vary it?

In fact, he wasn't getting any ball

Really? You’ve provided a very long list of contestable kicks up above.

If you genuinely believe he played well then that’s OK, I just disagree. Or if you think he gets a pass because the forwards were rubbish, that’s OK but I also disagree. If you don’t think it matters that Andy Farrell expressed concern about it, fair enough, but again, I disagree.

If we’re exempting Crowley from criticism for our inability to string phases together, ok, but that absolutely isn’t the standard by which test level out-halves are judged. That simply isn’t how it works.

Aaaaand you dodged the substantive point of my post.

Let’s try a different tack.

Do you think Jack Crowley played well on Friday?

Argentina have named their team for Friday, and it's strong:

Pablo Matera straight back in at blindside following suspension, Guido Petti back in the second row. Santi Carreras back on the bench following injury.

They've a lot of pace and power in this team - two of the best flankers in world rugby IMO, and a really dangerous back three with huge pace and offloading ability.

Argentina: 

15 Juan Cruz Mallia, 14 Rodrigo Isgro, 13 Lucio Cinti, 12 Matias Moroni, 11 Bautista Delguy, 10 Tomas Albornoz, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Joaquin Oviedo, 7 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Pedro Rubiolo, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Joel Sclavi, 2 Julián Montoya, 1 Thomas Gallo

Replacements: 

16 Ignacio Ruiz, 17 Ignacio Calles, 18 Francisco Gomez Kodela, 19 Franco Molina, 20 Santiago Grondona, 21 Gonzalo Garcia, 22 Santiago Carreras, 23 Justo Piccardo

I think he did fine. Not brilliantly, not poorly. Better than some here are suggesting. Significantly better than some are suggest with regards his kicking.

But I think it's difficult to get a proper judge on his running of the attack / game-management when we just couldn't get beyond 3 phases, or get any ball because of the significant amount of issues in a significant amount of other areas.

Now, 2 questions in return:

1. Do you think the number of times Crowley kicked is indicative of how often we got him the ball to operate with (as you seemed suggest)? Given 5 of them were re-starts, and 1 was a free-kick?
2. Of the list of issues we had on Friday, where do you think Jack Crowley's performance comes ranked in terms of priority?