Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

if prendergast plays like that against the french, we will be crucified - Crowley has to start

POM did well, huge tackling stats babysitting prendergast. Baird was good when he came on, although I think Conan should be 6 and Doris 8 for the french game.

Dan was quiet, i expect him to play like 5 men against the french.

Bealham is as important as Porter now.

an away win in the 6 nations is worth its forward pack weight in gold.

Crowley has to start

I’d be shocked if he does.

Once again Prendergast played 80 minutes and Crowley came on at FB.

Does the red card mean Ringrose is out for the France game?

as much as the overall discussion might be a bit hyperbolic, your assessment of SP's game is also a bit hyperbolic. He directed field position well at times but was equally anonymous at times - the 20min red card period being a particularly bad time as ireland tried to overplay in their own half. again, he had some great touches with the boot but he also had some very aimless kicks and the clearance he put out on the full was particularly bad.

i think the talk about his defence is a bit ott in general but he really was terrible today and just brushing it off as you are isnt doing him any favours either.

i think the idea that ireland look better in attack with SP isnt fully correct either. they didnt look that great today, against both australia and england the attack looked much better with JC so that just leaves the scotland game? went very well in fairness but scotland are a pretty poor team when it comes down to it

SP is obviously a great player but its getting to a stage where he is being judged under completely different criteria to any other options - he isnt infallible

show me you haven’t a rashers what a discussion forum is without telling me you haven’t a rashers what a discussion is .

haven't you said this today already, or was that when you said you were just taking a break from the forum?

Some Irish players were good, a lot of Irish players were bad, today.

this is where we discuss them.

I have to say I think I'm missing something about Sam Prendergast that a lot here seem to see?

You'd think he was having a stinker based on some of the comments here. I'm not seeing that at all. He's been absolutely fine while delivering some moments that show how good he really is.

Does he need to improve? Of course. He's 22, but he has such a high ceiling from what I can see.

fair comment

its interesting that people keep saying that the attack looks better with SP at 10 despite their being no evidence of this apart from the scotland game, the attack was pretty poor today - as it was against england, as it was against australia (and NZ to be fair)