Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

hence why i said 'if nash is indeed available' - i had heard that he was both available and unavailable from different sources so it seemed up in the air

harry byrne has so few caps because of his unfortunate injury record, he was somewhat consistently getting picked in ireland squads though despite being 3rd choice at best for leinster at the time. he was getting picked ahead of ross (2nd choice/starter due to sextons limited availability), carty (starter) and ben healy (2nd choice/ starter since carbery was generally injured). to be fair, crowley was in a similar position when first picked in the squad but he ended up as first choice munster 10 fairly quickly after that

I don’t think that is the case here. Osbourne can cover centres and full back. Ireland have gone 6-2 so need more cover. If it was a 5-3 split on the bench I would imagine Nash starts.
No idea if injured or not but Nash was holding his rips after every tackle for 15 minutes before he was taken off for Munster last week. Thought it was bonkers he wasn’t taken off before half time watching it. It may also have been taken into consideration.

While I don't think anybody can argue against the bias the IRFU usually show to Leinster players, I think on this occasion it's not the case

Let's be kind and say Munster played like a junior schools team in both games against Leinster this season. Nash and Osborne started both games for their respective teams.

Put yourself in the shoes of the coach. If you were Simon Easterby watching those games, your first time in charge of a national team and there's a chance of a Grand Slam, who do you select? I think Easterby has it right

Nash doesn't make anything happen for you at this level imo. Compare his influence on the game to Lowe for example. He's a solid, honest player but he's just outclassed by the 3 other wingers on the field if he starts against France. Osborne is a better overall rugby player, better boot, better under the high ball, correct call imo.

I'm not getting involved in the bias debate.

How Munster played against Leinster is irrelevant. It's the individual players you are looking at not the team performance.

We need some more talent to come through on the wing for sure, we're very bare there. Lowe is still great but he's into his 30s and can't keep going for too much longer. Hansen I hope can get back to his pre-injury sort of level. JOB looked to have made the step up, he was benching in the RWC as far as I remember, think he came on and played really well against NZ, but again after some injuries he doesn't quite look the same player.

Zebo

Yeah it's slightly bizarre.

We've had a few guys who looked like they could become world beaters - Larmour and Stockdale being the ones that spring to mind most - but they can never seem to get to that real top level. Any guys with real pace always seem to be very incomplete players, e.g. Larmour again, Baloucoune.

Baloucoune in particular suffered for playing with Ulster. They just didn't play the style that Catt liked.

Agree completely & therefore they are certs to start regardless of form...Hansen in the AI case in point.

A bit like the cover for 7, let's move our best 8 out of position if Vdf gets injured.

In general I’d agree with your second paragraph not sure it creates top quality back rows though, I think some of it is down to simply we don’t get a pile of lads who are really tall beyond say 6.4 and v et athletic so physically they are built more for back row than second. It helps that backrow is 3 positions so there’s plenty of room for 4 backrows in underage squads which other positions won’t have.

wow so u want players to deliberately injure a apposition player.u are a p***k

Hard treatment and deliberately injuring someone is very different. If you think France aren’t planning the exact same for Prendergast tomorrow you’re delusional.

If you're trying to get someone off the pitch very early, it means that you're intent on injuring him.