Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

With POM gone now I could see a situation where Conan fills the POM role and Coombes fills the Conan role in the squad.

Will be huge competition for the 20 shirt.

I have a feeling McNabney will jump the queue. Seems very smart, very physical. Doesn't make mistakes, good in the lineout. A hard, abrasive edge about him. I don't watch a huge amount of Ulster, but from what I've seen of him, I really rate him.

Baird, Izzy, Cian, Coombes, Deegan, Ahern, McNabney competing now.

Gleeson, Quinn, Culhane not too far away.

Excellent to see so many coming through at 6/8, but wouldn't mind seeing a few more coming through at 7 too.

Agree on McNabney, looks the real deal.

John Hodnett was outstanding for Munster this weekend and has been in great form of late. I didn't see the Ulster game but Timoney scored a try yesterday. Hodnett has 0 caps and Timoney has 3.

As good and all as JvDF is it's a damning indictment that we brought no openside to the 6N and the back ups to JvDF have 3 caps between them.

Wait. Please tell me you're not talking about the "wearing a Munster hat to Ireland training" nonsense.

Coombes' real problem is that he hasn't been consistently out-performing his rivals. Consistency has been his major issue in the past.

Up to this maybe 6 months ago, I thought Coombes was a good player but blows hot and cold. In fairness to the guy, the past 6 months he has been excellent and deservedly will be in the squad this summer.

I’ve no idea if management have an issue with him or not but realistically the problem he has is that Doris is Doris and Conan has a huge amount of credit in the bank. It’s unlikely they are choosing 3 number 8s in a squad. With POM now gone though, Baird not taking any chance he’s been given and Izzy injured quite a bit, Conan may likely be starting at 6 for Ireland. Opening up that bench option, which I’d prefer to see Coombes in than Baird or Izzy.

Kelleher, Joe McC, Coombes, Aki/Henshaw/Ringrose/Osbourne can give Ireland a nice bomb squad of their own to bring on against a tiring team.

It is nonsense. It quite literally never happened.

Anyway, it had been two years since Coombes' previous cap at that point, so quite how it explains his exclusion up to then I'm not sure.

But look, he's back in the frame, he's playing well, let's see how we go.

Deegan and Coombes are definitely putting the hand up for consideration, and given Baird's inconsistency, would be a good shout for the 23. I hope Farrell will rotate lads in, rather than simply starting Conan at 6 every match. Was really disappointing that Prendergast and Izuchukwu got zero game time this 6Ns.

Hodnett hasn't had the best run with injury in the last 12 months so at risk of contradicting my original post, I suppose that's why we went to the 6N with only one specialist no.7. I don't watch enough of Ulster to know why Timoney wasn't included, but as a team they were having a poor season up to the start of the 6N. But we brought a heap of back-up number 6s in Conan, Baird, Izuchuwku and Cian P. Why not leave one of them at home and bring a no.7? 2 of those 4 guys got zero game time.

It's not a great position to be in either way. Yes we have one world class no.7, but if he's injured were forced to play our captain and best forward out of position. As for POM, he was a reasonable makeshift 7 when younger. If he was a serious back-up option in this year's 6N there then that was a terrible idea. This position will have to be sorted in the next 12 months. We need to find a back-up to JvDF and get them game time in green both on the summer tour and in the AI.

Deegan is a guy who could make a massive contribution to Ireland also, but he's stuck in the Leinster log-jam of talent. Would be great to see him get more game time, interested to see if he can get more in Blue at the business end of this season.

I think he could legitimately challenge Conan for a spot, but Conan obviously has the cache of experience. I could see him supplanting Baird for the bench spot, his lineout ability would stand to him there. He's about as close to a like for like replacement of POM playing currently in terms of skills. Really think it was a mistake to pick POM for this year's tournament.

I can't understand why they don't have a look at alt to 7, esp the AI was a great opportunity.

The fall back is move Doris to 7 & bring in Conan to 8.

At least now with POM gone they have to go with a new 6.

Cant see much consistency in your arguments here.

Lamenting the lack of chances for Coombes and Hodnett but at the same time defending playing POM - the only guy out the backrow options where there was zero chance he was going to make the WC.

this is one of the most most leinster maga bots thing I have read on this site.

congrats.

Warned

no worries petal..

Tbh, I think it's a bit of a myth that Coombes lacks consistency and hasn't done it against the big teams or Leinster. (Tbh, if anything, Coombes is the definition of consistency).

This season has seen 2 of his poorer performances against Leinster, where he was decent. But prior to that he's had excellent performances against them:

• Nov 23, Coombes put in a serious shift, 16 carries, 18 tackles and I specifically remember his rucking was outstanding in this game.
• May 23, against a 2nd string Leinster, but Coombes was excellent 20 carries, 17 tackles and his defensive linespeed went a long wide towards shutting down Leinster's desire to go wide
• Oct 22, was excellent in a makeshift Munster team, got his customary double figure tackles and carries, but also scored a try and had a brilliant assist too.
• Apr 22, went off injured after 27 minutes but managed 14 tackles in that time and was the best back-row on the pitch in his time on it for my money.

He's also played brilliantly against the likes of Toulouse in Europe in recent seasons. There's plenty of evidence he can do it against the top teams at this stage.

Over the last 4-5 seasons, I'd argue Coombes has been Munster's most consistent performer only behind Tadhg Beirne.

The argument against Coombes for Ireland was that he wasn't quick enough or linked the play well enough to play Ireland's high-tempo, high number of ruck, possession-based game.

Ireland are now transitioning to a game, with fewer rucks, fewer phases, fewer passes per phases, where we kick earlier and more frequently. We've also looked under-powered at times culminating in being held up over the line a high number of times during the 6N. Couple this with POM retiring and Baird not really taking his chances, and Coombes has to start seeing more game time for Ireland, imo.

It'd be a mistake to continue to overlook him.