Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

This is exactly my take, fwiw.

The average age of our 23 vs NZ was 30.6. Their average age was 27.6. Three years younger, on average, across every position. That's significant.

EDIT: Correction on this. The average age of our 23 was 29.8. The 30.6 was the average age of the bench.

You asked what the answer was without Sexton. I provided it to you.

I'm as much of a fan as you are, we just have a difference of opinion.

Fwiw, I defended Farrell's selection with regards age distribution in the 2023 6N when compared to Wales, when Gatland selected a host of their old legends. We're almost 2 years further down the line now tho. My concern now is that, while I don't expect us to have anything near as big a fall as Wales, we are straying towards a similar selection.

I've also expressed my concerns about the age profile before this loss. So you can't claim I'm making this argument based on waiting around for a loss…

I see we've reached the "conservative selection is holding us back" phase of Farrells tenure. That's been thrown at every ireland coach I can remember and people will flat out refuse to hear any counter argument because they're obsessed with 2 or 3 veterans who are still getting picked. It comes and goes and obviously Farrell will go on doing as he thinks is best and being our best coach ever. Fun times

When we beat the All Blacks in Nov'21 the atmosphere was sensational, and I doubt the ticket prices were materially cheaper then

That's the best atmosphere I can remember, but I think a part of that, imo, was the Covid element too.

Fwiw, and I've said it before on here, I think having 2 Friday night games makes it almost completely untenable for supporters of other Provinces. I'm sure it's over a decade since there was an Ireland Test game outside of Dublin, and the Aviva deal is obviously the reason for that.

But if every game has to be played in the Aviva (and it does) we should be trying to limit the number of Friday night games. Having 2 in one Test window isn't a great look, imo.

We've also had, for example, an Ireland A vs NZ XV game in Dublin; there's a practical element with regards the fully capped game the following day etc. but I really don't see why that couldn't have been in Ravenhill.

It's driven by a few factors though (the Friday night games) - I think there was an agreement amongst the nations this window that to boost the broadcasting deal with BT that none of the games would clash (something I am in favour of), but that's why we've had Friday night games and a couple of Sunday games each weekend too.

I literally laid out numerous examples where he hasn’t been conservative, the exact opposite in fact, you just regurgitated some meaningless graph, then told me I’m “gaslighting” you.

I suspect you don’t know what gaslighting means and you definitely don’t know what conservative means.

A better example of gaslighting would be slating a coach month after month, year after year, regardless of results or indeed facts, then claiming to think he’s great and not knowing where the idea came from that people don’t like him.

Mod: Warned.

Scotland got 5pm on Sunday last week, I presume they had little or no choice in that. When one carrier has all the TV rights, they’re calling the shots I guess.

I was offered 2 tickets for tomorrow for 100 each. I’m sure they are decent seats but that’s too saucy to justify for me for a November match v Argentina. Was able to bring my son to the LAR match last season for Leinster for 30quid between us.

if the oldest team is the RWC was SA maybe age isn’t a disadvantage 😂