You're right, totally blanked on that 😳. I hope none of our incumbent centres play, bar perhaps Ringrose for NZ if he's fit.
You're confusing correlation and causation. You're saying "under Crowley" when it's far more accurate to say "with Crowley". He was pretty peripheral in the France 2024 game and, let's be honest, it was a lot more to do with France's implosion than anything great we were doing.
In 2024, we beat Italy 36-0. In 2025, we fell over the line 22-17 even though they played the entire second half with 14 men and only Dan Sheehan could save us.
By your logic, we should blame the out-half who played in 2025 and replace him with the guy who played in 2024.
The fact that they're the same person would seem to indicate that you can't always attribute results to the out-half alone.
There are plenty of rational and reasonable arguments for Crowley without needing these bizarre thought experiments.
If Jack Crowley is such a good running threat how come he has only managed to score 4 tries total in his entire Munster career?
He’s just his fifth season with the team. He’s played in 75 games at this point.
Prendergast, not a running threat apparently and has no pace, scored 5 tries just last season alone, including one he ran in from 40m plus against Bristol, and a nice one against Munster no less where he seems to back his pace and run past Nash and Farrell for a try.
Would to be a pretty dire Autumn to end up out if the top 6 though
How many minutes of the 2024 match did France play with 14 players and how many minutes did Ireland play with 14 players in 2025? Do you think that may have had a significant impact on the game?
seedings for world cup are awarded after the november intls
I doubt they will.
Why wait til 6n's, we should be looking at them in Nov imo
I'd say it's hard to tell it will be skewed by the Italy games in 6n, Fiji/Georgia/Japan games in Autumn and summer games againt Portugal.
I'd say the full starting team has very low churn. Some of it is lack of options like playing Cian Healy until he was ready to draw the pension. Similar situation with Sexton. Then they also played the likes of POM and Murray longer than you'd expect.
Part of it is down to the player welfare meaning players can go a bit longer without being worn-out. I think there's a conservatism in letting young players take the jersey. I think we'll see that if they play Henshaw or Aki ahead of Osborne at 12. But, Aki was hood enough to play Lions this summer so he's not making it easy to drop him.
I would pull the trigger and give Osborne the start for the autumn games, but nobody pays me for my opinions on selection.
No, Ireland has a much lower 'churn' and a much lower number of new caps given to players in meaningful games compared to other comparable teams. Also, Irish international players are much more highly concentrated in a single club team than any other top level international team.
Farrell does 'blood' some players every year, but often in meaningless games. For the competitive fixtures, the squad only changes in reaction to injuries, retirements or suspension
Is our turnover of national squad players statistically similar to other top teams? On the one hand, too much churn is not a good thing but not having enough change could be a problem too. So where do we stand on that?
We beat (hammered) France away and lost to England away (by 1 point) under Crowley (biggest ever win away in France and Frances biggest ever 6 nations home defeat to any team) going on to win the championship
We lost to France by 15 points (hammered) and beat England at home (by 5 points) in the 2025 6 nations (where we finished 3rd)
That's a massive turnaround in 1 season. Considering playing France and England away are way harder than playing them at home.
Almost all of the same players in every position except for out half
Just saying.
It's a BS explanation if how that interception happened, but I thought he played pretty close to the line generally through the game. I don't mean he took the ball flat every time, but he did it quite a bit through the game.
It's absolutely not the reason for the interception in that case. It was a very tired phase with some terrible decision making. Henshaw took the pass and didn't move forward, just passed it back. That's bad. Maybe there was a miscommunication where Henshaw thought Prendergast called a loop play, Sam didnt look like he was expecting it. And when Sam got the ball back, he should have done what Henshaw should have done and carried the ball forward.
Terrible phase of play by both of them. It was bad play by SP but he wasn't alone
Forde and Gavin look class, I hope they get serious consideration come the 6Ns.
This bit is hilariously ridiculous Prendergast plays so deep its utterly ludicrous to claim that he plays close to the line Here is where prendergast gets the ball just before the intercept and he offloads it
He gets the ball back 2 seconds later after Henshaw passes it back
The bulls advance on Prendergast, he doesn't take it to the line
he just steps sideways and passes it again literally 1 second later
Sam didn't play the ball to the line, the bulls advanced on him. He didn't 'delay his pass' he tried to get rid of it a second after he got it.
The fact that he hates taking the ball to the line, and the bulls were coming at him, is why he tried to ship it on, and the intercept happened.
You're tying yourself up in knots because your basic premise is so irrational (he's only being picked to sell jerseys or whatever it was), there's no argument you can make that will stand up to even basic scrutiny.
For example;
Ireland with Crowley at 10, beat that French side handily in the 2024 6Ns match in France
That's as meaningless as saying that Ireland, with Crowley at 10, lost to England in 2024 but a year later with Prendergast at 10, they won. It's technically true but utterly irrelevant.
Now, you and the rest of them will come back and say, oh, Crowley had to dig us out against England. Again, it's bollocks, but by the same "logic", we were heading for a series defeat in SA thanks to Crowley's incompetence, and Ciaran Frawley had to bail us out.
So, we should be picking Frawley ahead of either of the other two?
Of course we shouldn't, but if you were true to your own arguments, that's what you should be pushing for.
You're angry because the guy you wanted to be picked is not being picked. That's absolutely fine, but trying to dress it up as dispassionate logic and analysis is completely futile.
you only assess Prenderghasts last few minutes and not the total game?
Yes but the Irish yellow cards were a product of consistent French pressure.
You can't say if only:
These are all glaring facts easily evident from this game & others imho (bar the last one... :) )
Fact is, France hammered Ireland at home this year in the 6Ns, where SP the young rookie outhalf was brutally exposed, & Ireland folded under the ensuing pressure e .g. check out his missed tackle & being totally out run for the 3rd French try as a for instance !! (3rd out of 4 or 5 or something ridiculous!!!)
France haven't thrashed Ireland like that for over a decade, and for over 20 years in Ireland!! Wakey, wakey lads!!!
Yet, Ireland with Crowley at 10, beat that French side handily in the 2024 6Ns match in France
Just sayin...
@realhorrorshow
Sorry read your post incorrectly
Translate to what? The post I responded to was about backing younger options at 12, I was simply pointing out that most of Connacht's minutes are going to a 24 year old.
At Leinster the quality of minutes is probably also a factor, as there's a bit of a disparity between getting a hit out in the first choice 23 in Europe vs being sent to South Africa with the kids.
That doesn't always translate
Eg 2 seasons ago Larmour played more club than Lowe, even last season A osbourne wasn't a million miles behind Lowe club minutes
Cathal Forde has played more provincial minutes than Aki in each of the past *three seasons, I think that transition has already started at Connacht at least.
People like to forget that part, and that we had 2 yellow cards against France this year.
Our discipline was awful last 6 nations. And red card against Wales also not helping.
I think there are a few possibilities:
its one area where I wouldn't mind Humphries exerting some pressure on the Provinces to back the younger lads. Henshaw and Aki are past it imo and certainly will be in 2 years. There's a ridiculous amount of talent in the centres, who need gametime. Not only is it the right call for the future, it's the right call now in terms of performances. Henshaw starting 2 games in SA was a terrible decision imo.
We won in 2024 because we caught a shell shocked French team on the hop in Marseille, but claiming that's even largely down to Jack Crowley's performances is farcical.
Also they spent precisely 20 minutes of the game with 15 players.
Where did I mention anything about France in the post you’ve just replied to? You done the same as this last night too. Is it a problem with reading you have or is it just a problem when you know your bs has been rightly called out?
The simple fact is at the minute we have 2 reasonably good 10’s, neither of them are perfect with both having different flaws, but in the eyes of our national team coaches, where the main men are from England, New Zealand and believe it or not Munster, Prendergast is currently viewed as being the better player. How is it so hard for you to accept that or admit it?
Why have you the comment about double standards at the start of your post? Do you understand what the phrase double standards means? Both now and last night I have alluded to Prendergasts flaws as well as Crowleys. Where have you acknowledged any of Crowleys flaws? You wanted to judge Prendergast based on one game and when another poster suggested doing the same for Crowley based on the Italian game you said that would be “silly” due to the errors other players made that day. Yet you didn’t acknowledge the errors of any other players in the games where you’re assessing what Prendergast done. That’s where the double standards come into it.
thats just a lie Phog. Crowley did barely anything of note when he came. I invite you to present evidence of his crucial contributions
Because he will be 35 at the RWC & more importantly Doris' best position is 8.
Conan starting at 8 would be a very short term plan. Conan is 33 now and will be 35 at the next world cup. He's great as bench impact but I think his impact around the pitch when he starts will reduce significantly in the next season or 2. Could well be too old by the world cup.
I'd keep him in the bench impact roll and try new starters.
For that matter, VDF is less than a year younger so he might well make it to the world cup, but he won't be any better than he is now. Sounds crazy because hes playing well but it's worth considering options at 7 too.
Why is it unsustainable? Both should comfortably still be in-situ by the next RWC. It gets two of our best back rowers on the field. Simply put - Jack Conan is just a better rugby player than any of the potential 7s who might be selected. All Blacks do this regularly too by shifting Ardie Savea between 7 & 8, I think it's something we can rightly do with Caelan Doris.
