Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I don't know tbh. Crowley might score more tries personally in the Leinster side, but Leinster overall might score less IMO as I don't think he would suit the attack as well. It's a kind of nonsensical hypothetical.

My point was more about the fact that it was being repeated here ad nauseum that Prendergast is slow, that he isn't a running threat etc - and yet he scored 5 tries last season, some of which very clearly highlighted his pace and line breaking ability.

Exactly this.

There is this kind of widespread view that any time people try to defend the, at times OTT, criticism of Sam Prendergast, that people are attacking or doing down Jack Crowley.

I actually really like Jack Crowley as a player - I’ve said this multiple times before. If he reaches his full potential and becomes the long term Irish 10 I have zero issue with that.

But too much of the criticism of Prendergast on here is OTT and sensationalised and ignores his obvious positive traits, and equally some of the praising of Crowley is OTT too.

And all of that can be true and Crowley can still have a better running threat. Which is the case, imo.

But like…. Whatever way you slice it, he directly compared. It’s silly to argue he’s not.

On the number of tries Crowley/Prendergast score, ROG had 16 in his career between club and country. Not really what he was there for. 10s don't need to score tries, they need to kick their point and create scores for others. Both of them need to improve their kicking stats afaik. Neither are in the 80%+ range, thats not good enough for a top 3 test team.

Unfortunately we haven't seen enough of Crowley in green to judge how well he might organise the team and the kind of difference he would make in attack versus what Prendergast has done. I'd still like to see him get some game time this November, particularly if he continues ot play we'll in red, though the kicking is a real problme.

ON Prendergast being too deep and/or taking thing to the line, Dupont's disallowed try in the first 15 minutes in last years 6N was a disaster for Prendergast in my mind. He called the ball without any plan and telegraphed the poor situation he found himself in resulting in Keenan being tackled way behind the gain line, panic stations and another **** pass to Penaud. Brutal. that can be easily dismissed as growing pains in a pressure cooker situation, fair enough. But he did something eerily similar in South Africa.

Im talking about since Prendergast took over. I liked Crowley a lot before then and thought his 6N season was excellent. The promise was that Prendergast would be a generational player who could manage attack in a superior fashion to what Crowley brought. I haven't seen it but seeing both operate in the same season would be a one way to put it to bed. For me the France match last season showed just how easily all the progress Ireland have made cold be frittered away. Lots of people played poorly but Prendergast looked way out of his depth, which compared poorly to Crowley's performance in France the year before.

o gara had 16 tries in his international career, not his international and club career

This is 100% it. Conor Murray talks about this in his book - Ireland prize having their halfbacks get multiple touches or involvements in phase play. The idea was you’re no use to anyone buried in a ruck.

The obsession on this thread with carrying the ball and making hits is absurd to me.

As I’ve said before - if what we wanted in a 10 was someone to carry hard to the line repeatedly and smash people in the tackle, then Bundee or Stu McCloskey are our best options.

Those are not the core skills of an out half.

'Misinterpreteting'? on this thread? I for one are shocked.