Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

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.

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.

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

They clearly don't care about numbers on backs. It's pretty clear that if VDF gets injured, they'd rather see <7. Doris 8. Conan> than <7. Timoney/Hodnett/Whoever 8. Doris>.

And tbh, the idea that a seven has to be a short squat lad and the 6 has to be a big tall guy is a bit obsolete, so why not?

Hickie was an incredible player. I always felt Conway was an excellent winger for us, scored tries, speed and did loads off the ball. Late bloomer though, and only ended up with about 20 caps iirc.

My, badly articulated point, is that an underage team consists of 15 back row players (an exaggeration on my part, I know). This ensures back rows are the biggest pool of players that remain in the sport.

Underage rugby - like underage soccer, underage GAA, underage other sports - consigns kids to the scraphead at far too young an age. Just so coaches can prove how great they are by winning trophies with their kids teams. A child's progress within their chosen sport shouldn't be dependent on the lottery of when they start physically maturing.

All sports pay lip service to inclusivity. Their objective should be to have kids playing into adulthood. But it's all about winning every available underage trophy. The head scratching that ensues when they can't field an adult team would be comical of it weren't so disappointing.

/Rant over 😁

Ross Tucker a science and research consultant for World Rugby, had a very interesting podcast on player development about 12 months ago.

He wasn't making your back row argument, but he did make a compelling argument that the current system common in all sports was confining nearly all late developers to the scrap heap. The younger that age group is picked for "elite/development squad" the worse the problem is. The top 20% in a group of kids at 14 will be a very different group at 18 if they are exposed to the same training inputs.

I'll have another search later, but can't find it currently

I assume you have never played the game at any level. Not the case at all. 10s and playmakers in general will always be targeted for rough treatment, even at J3/4 level.