Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

He was out on his feet in the later stages of QF, took ages to get up of the ground at times, no running risk , just passing the ball to the next/nearest Irish player, no impact in rucks he joined.

Sexton retired a year and a half ago and people still hate him.

time to move on lads

So you are saying POM in 2025 is of a similar standard to Sexton in 2023? It's to pick out any moment that show's he isn't up…

A very mediocre 6N?

This just isn't true, unless I'm watching a completely different match to you.

He's been outplayed by his opposite number in all games bar Scotland. Tom Curry, Jac Morgan and Paul Boudehent all made hay against us. I'd argue that Fraser McReight did a number on him in the AI too.

VdF hasn't been bad but he's been well below his WPOTY form.

100% this. People are moaning about Healy, Herring and Murray.

VdF, McCarthy, Beirne, JGP (third best 9 to take the pitch) are all more culpable. To say nothing of Prendergast, Osbourne etc. I thought only Doris and Keenan were good. Sheehan was quite good.

Do I think we should move on from the old guard? Absolutely. I do think we have an issue with reverence and sentiment clouding out selections.

Did yesterday prove that? No, actually - not as much as it proved there are other issues.

We were told by some poster on here that it's like for like, comparing him to Hansen 😂

On guard jury as ever

Get over your Hate Comments they do nothing for the thread

Being 'outplayed' by your opposite number does not mean he played badly.

He was one of our better forwards against Wales, him and Morgan were very closely aligned on the stat sheets.

Ben Curry played 7 against us and VdF absolutely outplayed him, so you can stop lying right there.

As I've pointed out before, fans from every top tier nation in World Rugby see Van Der Flier for the class act he is except for fans in Ireland - who for some bizarre reason (see also: Ringrose) try to make up things to make him come across as a worse player than he actually is.

Overall view coming away from that game is that France were unbelievable for a 25-30 minute period after we went ahead early in the second half. It was difficult for us to match them physically, which is ultimately what rugby comes down to at any level.

A lot of discourse around the 10 situation. Sam was poor yesterday but I don't really see any problem playing him for every game in this championship. He will benefit from the experience and the longer term hope would be that we will have two 10s capable of playing to a high level in international rugby.

What I do think is a deeper issue however is the depth of our squad. France could roll off all their subs with immediate impact. Yesterday we basically couldn't bring on Herring, Healy or Murray until the game ended. This has been the case with LHP and 9 for some time now. A part of it is selection policy where the coaches just haven't gone with Boyle. Another part of it is that we don't really have many players knocking the door down for selection with their performances for their provinces. A lot has been made of the Leinster bias which I don't think exists from a coaching perspective. How many Ireland players have come through in the last 10-15 years from Munster or Ulster? Connacht in fairness probably punch above their weight in that respect. I think the state of the provinces is the real issue here and maybe is beginning to manifest itself on the pitch now.

I honestly think this is just verging on overthinking the whole issue tbh.

Is it an issue? Yes

Is it the reason we struggled versus NZL and France? No. Ultimately what both had in common for me, and its a buzz word at this point, conservatism. What I've noticed throughout this season is we've managed our squad well…except for NZL & France i.e the 2 big games for us. In these games it feels like we've gone for the safest team possible with little risk whereas the other games we've played. What these safe selections indicate to me is a team that's more fearful of losing the game than a side backing themselves to win and tbh it manifested in the way we played. Idk about others but for me the big red flag was Doris being held up, it just looked like we were more worried about getting turned over so wanted to score ASAP and as a result lost all our patients which led to Doris running into 2 bodies and getting held up…Ireland in 2023 for instance would have gone through 4-5 more phases and patiently waited for their opportunity to strike.

But you know right well that if he was fit and on form he still wouldn't be selected plus like Ahern he's a natural big athlete, that's something you can't train.

Healy offers no impact off the bench so Porter is flogged so no matter how good he is a 125kg man after 60 mins is burnt. Yes O'Mahony has workrate nut lacks a bit of power in games like these that forces Doris to be our real main backrow carrying option in the backrow. VDF was quiet, he needs someone like Hodnett breathing down his neck.

The fact is Ireland go too conservative and flog the dead horse. Example is I think Cardiff 2017 a game we lost against Wales, Murray gets injured in the 1st half and he's playing on 1 arm, luckily it's near half time and they get him off without subbing him so he can be assessed, come the 2nd half he's back on still visibly injured playing on 1 arm everyones like WTF! Eventually Marmion replaces him and he has a decent showing, but any scrum half in Ireland must be looking at that sickened thinking even if i play well the coaches still won't select me the end result is lack of competition kills competitiveness.