Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I noticed that myself, was completely nonchalant in doing anything about securing that ruck, way too high and ended up stood up at the side doing absolutely nothing. Looked like he was more interested in not coming to any harm, that try was solely on him.

Against the head should be interesting, wonder if anyone is going to point him out..

Wales wasn't last week, it was two weeks ago.

Why that matters is that there is no way there was going to be an 'honest and informed head-to-head' where Crowley gets a start there. It would have meant a month without a start for SP. Similarly, whoever started against England was most likely to play against Scotland due to the small window between matches and the time invested during the prep period.

I get the frustration about them not having the head-to-head during the tournament if you are a person who believed that was going to be the case. However, the problem there is the people who believed they were going to have a head-to-head as it didn't make any sense.

It is widely accepted that Crowley and SP are very different players, with different strengths and weaknesses so it was never going to be easy to switch between the two from match to match without revamping their whole tactical approach. They were going to set up with a style that was more suited for one or the other, unless there was injury or terrible performances that forced a change.

If you look at your own analysis of Crowley's form, where I think you are being pretty generous related to his club form, it is hardly an overwhelming case that the Irish coaches should have set the side up for him, especially if they felt SP was more suited to how they felt they should play.

Do you think that perhaps playing in a team with amongst others 36 and 37 year old props starting may affect his club performance a bit where his direct rival starting with a near irish pack and bringing lads like snyman and barrett on as luxury players may help?

What is this constant focus on team wins and trying to tie it directly to the outhalf?

The way some keep harping back to last season, you'd swear Crowley played like the best OH in the world and dragged a poor Irish team to a grand slam, while the loss last weekend was purely down to SP where he let down an Irish side playing well.

Presuming Italy do not come up with a huge upset at the weekend, the Irish sides this year and last will have the exact same number of losses.

I know some have form with constantly bringing up that a substitute lock played in a world cup win but it is a team sport, the other players on their team and the performance of the opposing 23 have a huge say in who wins each match and competitions.

big financial hit for the IRFU from this 6 nations. not what they needed after a big loss last year. 6 million down, money that could have helped the provinces a lot

Exactly. What's the deal with Murray, Pom and Healy. Thought they were now retired. Forgotten but not gone?

I think the problem is nienbar and goodman, with catt we were creative with pods and decoy runners, with goodman we seem bereft of ideas only one out runners, nienbar gets his teams to overpower the opposition and uses blitz defence, works most of time for leinster as its basically the irish team but different story when we come up against SA, france and England etc, also regarding joe mccarthy, no wonder he is lazy and complacent as he broke through last year and has been undroppable since even though his displays have been poor, it seems it's harder to get off than onto the irish 15, same story with POM, healy and Murray etc

Ouch 🤣

Every single Irish player who is a regular in the 23 over the last number of years would be paid better in the UK or France.

However there is an attractive tax/pension deal in Ireland and the players are better looked after and tend to have longer careers.