Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Yes his ban runs until this week so is not available for sunday

Of course they re watched it and took notes.

I wade through the absolute mountain of guff in this forum for nuggets of genuine analysis like that.

After all the biased, uninformed opinions about Prendergast and Crowley, surely we can appreciate some actual analysis?

Reading reports that the IRFU planned to have Bealham and Hansen get injured so they could get more Leinster players into the team. Crazy.

Ah, yeah but you don't experiment in the 6N or world cup, or against new Zealand or South Africa or Australia or Argentina. Then experiment agaisnt the likes of the second tier teams (soon to include Wales according to the rankings?) which happens once or twice a year.

I think there is a certain amount of experimentation or development going on with Sam at the moment. I think it’s pretty low risk because both he and Crowley are good and there's not much in it at the moment.

They know how good Crowley is and I think they're giving Sam some games to find out exactly how good he is at international level.

Your last paragraph suggests experimentation.

The analysis was great.....until it stopped as soon as Crowley came on. Is there anyone unbiased who can analyse BOTH??

Great bit of work, well done. I'll just pick you up on one thing which I've covered elsewhere on the 13th minute analysis. He didn't 'get' the ball, it squirted out of the ruck and ended up on the floor in front and to the right of him. By the time he'd regathered it, it was at best a 50/50 chance. But on advantage, he probably should have gone for it.

On the missed conversion of JGPs try, I saw someone (maybe on Against the Head?) mention that because of the reduced time to take conversions, players should ensure that the ball gets to the 10 as quickly as possible. JGP threw it away after scoring, so this may have cut down the available time. When he took the kick he only had 4 seconds left. Looked like he rushed it.

The problem with that occurred just before this when Kelleher's try was disallowed. The ref was fine with it and was standing next to Prendergast who had the ball teed up when he told him not to take it as the TMO had just notified him of Beirne's transgression. The ref often awards a try without reference to the TMO and the TMO (off their own bat) finds something.

If there's going to be a TMO review after every try and before the conversion is kicked, that's going to slow things down a lot.

Clearly the TMO was going through the footage and saw it and then notified the ref. So the clock would have been started anyway. And that then causes a problem with the clock if it has to be stopped and restarted (if the try stands after TMO intervention). The kicker may have very little time to go through their routine again.

My view is that once the shot clock is started, it shouldn't be stopped and the kicker allowed to take the kick even if there are issues with the try. They can disallow afterwards.

A chance is not an occasional test against Tonga, or 20 minutes against Italy. Again and again we have had a litany of players who never got a opportunity to test themselves against the best.

So when Sexton was injured in the 2015 world cup, Ian Madigan had a total of zero starts against a top tier country even though he was already 26. And in 2023 when Sexton could barely walk in the final 10 minutes, there was no 10 available with the exposure to be trusted to come on for the last 20. I cannot think of a 10 under the age of 24 who got a start against one of the top teams when the incumbent was available since O'Gara got into the team, until Prendergast in the Autumn.

To go into another WC in that position would be criminal. So give both of our best 10's game time against the top teams. Crowley is currently the better player. Who know who it will be in 2 years.