Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Edit : mistake

I'm sorry but the little forgotten about province in the west of Ireland is producing international players. We have Aki, Bealham and Hansen there and a host of players on the periphery.

Our little province with about a fifth of the population of Leinster is doing a great job.

I go to as many as I can. Didn't get to any of the 6 nations this year but did last.

I attend about 50% of Munster home games.

Am I allowed an opinion now without abuse or am I still unworthy?

You actually sound more like a Republic of Ireland supporter yourself.... take that how you will.

Thats a pretty extreme glass half empty takeaway from the SA tour imo

We are producing a lot of talent. I suppose you don't want to give Connacht any credit for taking the unwanted Cian Prendergast and turning him into a potential future Ireland starter?

Darragh Murray, Shayne Bolton, Jack Aungier, Sean Jansen all played for the Ireland A team against England along with a potential future superstar, that's 21 year old centre Hugh Gavin

At the same time Prendergast, Murphy, Blade and Forde were in the Ireland 36.

And as you are well aware Bealham, Aki and Hansen all part of the 23.

There's a lot of young men there and I'd expect at worst that three of them will break through and become starters for Ireland.

We have a great academy right now. I'm trying to get an 18 year old hooker considered for it at the moment. I think he's a very special talent but I'm not qualified enough to make decisions as to how good he is.

At the same time, if the TMO wasn't so abysmal in the 1st test, we likely win that series 2-0. I don't think we were good mind. The WC team would've taken SA to the cleaners, likewise the NZ team that showed up in the following Nov. We're not that team anymore unfortunately. We need to evolve, but that shouldn't mean the players brain dump all the good things we had going for us. No reason for our passing and accuracy to fall off of a cliff.

I get it very hard to believe that someone who invests that much time, money and effort into going to that many matches could have the opinion you do on the subject. It’s an opinion you might expect to hear from the sunshine supporters but not someone that actually understands the game of rugby.

What do you or the lads in the pub you were talking to want/need as a solution? Just to clarify I’m asking this as a genuine question too.

Like if the better players are in a particular province then what do you expect the IRFU to do? Instruct Andy Farrell to pick a minimum number of players from each province regardless of quality? It hardly needs explaining why that won’t work.

Maybe share around central contracts with an equal number in each province but then better players without one may leave to play abroad and the national team suffers while players not good enough to play on the national team are on central contracts.

Force players to move from one province to another that maybe don’t want to just to make it look like everything is equal? But then would your mates in the pub be happy to support a Leinster player that’s playing for Munster without being fully dedicated to them as he’s there not by his own choice?

Apart from the other provinces producing better players which would be by no means a quick fix, what other options do you think are available to solve this?