Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I don't think either of them get disproportionate hatred on here; there's plenty of non-good-faith posts to go around from all angles these days, alas. Which is why I think portraying one side as squeaky-clean and the other as purveyors of "horsesh*t" is just plain wrong.

I also don't understand why you think anyone is obligated to "call out" anyone. Or why you need to use such emotive language; what kind of reaction do you expect?

Imagine Prendergast has an off day from the tee and someone posted this:

Prendergast down for a 46% kick success. I thought his point of difference was his kicking?

Would that be credible? Cos that’s exactly what you’re doing.

If you had come in and said “Crowley with an unusually poor defensive performance this weekend, it’s normally his point of difference” I don’t think anyone would’ve had an issue.

The full context being that was a discussion comparing Crowley and Prendergast in that individual game. I literally said as much earlier in the thread,:

To be fair, I was responding to a request to compare them exclusively on this game.

And engaged in the discussion and gave plenty of reasoning throughout the whole thread. For example:

The place kicking, the stats bear that out. Tho Prendergast showed character to respond and convert the most difficult of his 3.

The kicking from hand is much more qualitative, naturally. But, especially early on, even Prendergast's long exit kicking looked aimless, and allowed England territory and field position. He rarely hit grass, iirc (tho I’d have to watch it back). Crowley’s had one or 2 too long also, but contestables seemed much more… contestable. Bear in mind this is one area that it was seen as Prendergast outright having the upper hand on Crowley.

That's the context. That's literally the opposite of the exact same thing. The exact same thing would've been posting a 2-liner like the following:

Prendergast down for a 33% kick success. I thought his point of difference was his kicking?

(Word count: 192, I'm disappointed with myself).

Sooooooooooooo. Why did Ireland form drop during this Six Nations? Players all doing well following the conclusion of said competition. Coaching and tactics would be my assessment. Defence and Attack.

My point was merely that both 10’s, Sam & Crowley, are excellent prospects, neither are perfect, neither are shocking, and performance varies game to game week to week so no clear run away winner to the balanced / unbiased viewer. No drama, and good for Irish rugby as it makes them both improved athletes

I don't doubt there is some vile stuff posted about Prendergast on social media etc. but this…

10 Sam Prendergast (Leinster):

He had an armchair ride with the forward dominance his pack delivered but he shone with kicks from hand and in finding gaps.

…is hardly it, right?

Lets not pat Humphries on the back too quickly on this, and it doesnt come in till 2026. Leinster have what 12 central contracts (and this isnt leinster bashing, they have the better players), average say 400k each. thats 4.8m, under the 30% rule they had to fund 1.4m themselves, this moves it to 1.9m, so 500k…thats one game moved to croke park for leinster, and thats only 166k per province, so not a silver bullet to make the other provinces competitive

Is there a silver bullet to make the other provinces more competitive? Something obvious and immediate that everyone in every province will be delighted with? If so, you should put it in a proposal and said it to the IRFU immediately.