Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Let’s see how the next few weeks go. Crowley has not been setting the world on fire at Munster. Good but not great - maybe we will see great over the coming weeks. I am not convinced that SP be starting at Leinster - Cullen will pick who he thinks is the best for the Leinster team and progressing in Europe. SP may bench or he may not even be in the 23 for the big games.

AI's over now so hopefully POC gets moved on, lineout and forward play has gone backwards big time on his watch

How likely is this though considering Farrell won’t be there for the 6N? Maybe it would be fine but I can’t really see them getting a new guy in while the main man isn’t around.

there you go again, targeting others as not “normal rugby supporters” and “pages and pages of comments” .

It’s a discussion forum , we discuss things !

I dunno if the URC is the right benchmark for assessing Leinster's lineout, given how mix and match the selections can be at times.

If you look at in Europe last year - Leinster had lineout success of 88% (94/107). They had two poor-ish days (both against Leicester) with 85% (11/13) and 73% (8/11) accuracy, and were poor in the rout of Stade Francais (10/13 - 77%), but on the biggest days Leinster's lineout was really good:

-La Rochelle in the group - in horrendous conditions - 12/13 (92%)

-La Rochelle in the knockouts - 10/11 (91%)

-Northampton (English champions) in the semi - 12/12 (100%)

-Toulouse in the final - 21/23 (91%).

All of those stats point to a team with a lineout that was functioning pretty well when it mattered most.

Feck me, you are really spoiling for an argument aren't you.

Eyes were all you needed to see the improvement in attacking shape once Crowley came on. And cherry picking a clip or two unrepresentative of overall action doesn't change that.

Here is a more detailed analysis that doesnt focus on the fact that every single phase wasnt perfect

https://www.the42.ie/crowley-casey-ireland-6558913-Dec2024/

I'd argue that there wasn't much improvement. FFS there was one in the 1st half that was so bad it culminated in Kelleher throwing the ball against the back of someone's head as they prepared to lift! Those 5 losses against Aus wouldn't include the interception by Valentini either. It was up an down over the AI, some decent periods, some periods of disaster. It remains a big issue.

Its your unwillingness to see anything positive in what Crowley did that is silly. You would see from what I have, said if not blinded by your strange need to denigrate everything he gives, that what I said was Crowley is best option for now but I believe once Prendergast gets more time in the Leinster 10 shirt that he will takeover as has the higher ceiling

I never disputed that Crowley was very good when he came on, and along with Casey (more so Casey IMO) was a major factor in us turning the game around. The point I was making was that those two specific examples were just noteworthy to me in that we seemed a bit helter skelter during that sequence, and the specific feedback I've heard in the past on Crowley was that this was the area he was struggling with a little behind the scenes - his command of the overall attack and his attention to detail.

His athleticism and directness gets him out of a jam sometimes, but unquestionably there are sequences for both Munster and Ireland where the attack doesn't look as fluid.

There is obviously something behind the scenes that Farrell and the coaches aren't fully happy about, would you accept that?

FWIW - I also offered up the mitigant that it's our first sequence of games, with not a huge amount of time in camp, where we've got a new attack coach/backs coach with the team. Frawley and Prendergast have the benefit of having been under his tutelage for the past couple of seasons, so naturally they might have an easier command of his attack right now.

We've obviously looked very good under the Mike Catt attack on quite a few occasions with Crowley directing things so I'm not saying at all I don't think he can get there either.

If McCarthy is saying though that the players are trying to make up lineouts on the fly during the game, and tbh there were times when you could see them changing the call very late, then that means the players felt the Aussies had cracked their lineout and knew what they were looking for. It stands to reason - Valetini had to be confident that time he jumped the ball that that lineout was going to the tail and over 15m or he's giving away one of the cheapest offside penalties ever.

If other sides are figuring us out too easily then that is 100% on the coaching.

Yeah, I obviously don't expect him to be even close to Sexton levels of composure or command of the attack, but it's been a narrative I've heard relatively consistently about him as a player, that his command of detail isn't what coaches want from him necessarily.

I agree that he's our most complete 10 right now, and if we had a must win game tomorrow, I'd want him starting at 10 for it. All that said - I don't really accept that he's been treated unfairly over the series either.