Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Well obviously this year's six nations will have a big impact on things. I think right now both are leading contenders. If they have a six nations like last year I think both will be right at the top in their positions.

I just can't see Farrell taking VdM, he's so deficient compared to his peers, and doesn't do the things Farrell likes his backs to do

How many games has Ringrose played for Ireland in the last 12 months? He's very injury prone.

How can you pick a guy whose played very little?

I agree he's a great player but if he gets injured again before or during the six nations he's not going.

Without checking I'd say he's alot less injury prone than Henshaw in general

This is objectively nonsense. Lowe is a much better player all round than VdM. His defense and kicking game alone are lightyears ahead

You suggested Frawley might travel.

So I hope you'll understand if I don't consider you a serious person.

I'm not sure, they both are very injury prone but Henshaw played the whole six nations this year.

Having a high penalty count is a symptom of another problem.

Teams give away penalties when they are losing collisions, or are not resourcing rucks, or not supporting linebreaks, or the scrum or lineout or maul are not functioning well.

Saying 'Ireland didn't play well because we had a high penalty count' is like saying 'Ireland lost because we scored fewer points than the opposition'

Teams have high penalty counts because they're not playing well

What has changed with Ireland?

Well, very little,

And that's the problem.

Other teams have worked out our weaknesses and our strengths, so they are neutralising the tactics that we used to gain attacking platforms from.

Our core players are older than they were last year and the year before, they have a lot more mileage, slower, take longer to get back off the ground, less dynamic attacking threat, also they have been videotaped to death so that they have lost the element of surprise. Teams know what James Lowe will do if he gets the ball so they can make sure they don't leave him the space along the sideline to kick long and deep

Teams also know who the starting 15 will be for Ireland will be, because unless there are injuries or suspensions, it's extremely predictable the vast majority of the time.

The benefit of Farrells system is high levels of cohesion, but the drawback of that is the other teams can easily predict what we're going to do, because we do the same things in every game. And unless our execution is close to flawless, we lose that cohesion benefit, without losing the penalty associated with being predictable.

Rugby is a systems game, a numbers game, not that much different from Rock Paper Scissors, except some teams have bigger rocks than others, so the paper doesn't always cover them entirely. Our rock is shrinking. Joe McCarthy is not as good as Peak James Ryan. Ryan Baird is not as good as peak Peter O Mahony, and Tadhg Beirne at 6 is not as good as either Peter O Mahoney or Tadhg Beirne at 4 or 5.