Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

If Nash is doing that on a regular basis I suspect they would be, but that's not the norm for Calvin Nash. Any player is entitled to a bad day or two but with SP we have a pretty decent picture of him as a tackler/defender now.

… I'm sick of this prendergast crowley bullsh!t

maybe put it into a separate thread, and any mention of it here gets a ban..

Mod: Post edited and warned.

Ok now we're getting somewhere. So if I excluded:

• the French tests, Japan and Fiji for NZ
• the Fiji, Georgia and Portugal Tests for Ireland

and there was still a large variance (bearing in mind I don't yet know what the results are) would this convince you?

No, it wouldn't.

A new coach, which Scott Robertson was, right at the start of this dataset, is always going to bring in a lot of his own new players as he settles on a squad. Particularly if brought in because the perception is that the last guy (and the squad) weren't doing well.

This doesn't make the new coach "not conservative" - you can't make a judgment on them at this juncture because there's nothing to compare it to.

If you want to do that - then, as I said, go an compare Farrell's first two seasons to Robertson's last two and see what that data tells you.

So lets see:

• NZ aren't being less conservative
• they gave a lot of minutes to guys against Japan, Fiji and a second/third string French side this summer
• apart from that it's largely been business as usual.
• They've capped less new players over this window than us.
• the actual quantum of minutes is realistically only a feature of (a) the fact they've played more games, (b) the nature of the games played.

So let's see what that looks like in practice:

• For NZ: excluding Japan, Fiji and France (where they "gave a lot of minutes to guys") and
• For Ireland: excluding Portugal, Georgia and Fiji (i.e. evening out the "the nature of the games played")
• and indeed doing it by minutes available to account for "fact they've played more games".

All of this based on your terms and your caveats you've provided above…. and…..

It's absolutely absurd to continue to contend that NZ aren't being less conservative than us since the RWC. But I suspect that's exactly what you'll do.

If you're going to do it, go and do it, and do it for all of them so rather than cherry-picking whichever name suits you.

You've been pretty quiet on the Scottish data I provided, is Gregor Townsend not one of Andy Farrell's peers?

How do you factor the two Emerging Ireland tours and the Ireland A games (v England last year, v Spain in November) into your thinking around Farrell's conservatism?

From the 2022 tour - 10 players have since been capped, and 2 players went to the RWC less than 12 months later.

From the 2024 tour - a further 8 players have since been capped (not counting Izuchukwu and Kendellen which are counted in the 2022 numbers).

A bigger piece of all of this - it's all relative around whenever the window is in which you choose to cut the data. So, for example, France have gotten 5,086 mins out of the cohort they've brought through in 2024 and 2025 to Ireland's 2,473 mins for the same time period.

But if you go back and look at the cohorts brought through in 2022 and 2023 - France got 4,620 mins out of that group to Ireland's 6,569 mins. Means the difference in the last 4 seasons is a relatively small 664 mins, during a period when France played an extra couple of games.

You can cut this data to try and make any argument you want, but it 100% does not paint some definitive picture of Ireland being more conservative than peers IMO.

If you're going to do it, go and do it, and do it for all of them so rather than cherry-picking whichever name suits you.

You've been pretty quiet on the Scottish data I provided, is Gregor Townsend not one of Andy Farrell's peers?

Ya, I mean it's not like this takes a load of time or anything…. or, indeed, as you've said yourself "why not go do it yourself". At least we've moved on from the "never actually bring any analysis to the table". Progress.

How do you factor the two Emerging Ireland tours

From the 2022 tour - 10 players have since been capped

From the 2024 tour - a further 8 players have since been capped

They weren't capped. Because the EI tours aren't capped games.

But are you really going to argue France only have more mins because "they gave a lot of minutes to guys against Japan, Fiji and a second/third string French side" but then argue we should include EI games in Farrell's metrics?

How would you rank the EI games with regards "the nature of the games played."?

You could indeed go back and look at the cohorts from 2022 and 2023. But bear in my ALL of this kicked off because you took umbrage with my statement that

To me, it seems like Farrell has gotten increasingly conservative as his tenure has went on.

To which you replied:

Data again doesn't really support this by comparison to other teams.

Farrell has awarded 16 new caps since the 2023 RWC

So at this point, you're kinda making my point for me.

I never said include the EI tours in the numbers, I mean that those are the numbers of players from those tours subsequently capped for the full national team.

As I said - continue though to ignore “peers” like the Scottish data etc that don’t suit your narrative and selectively cut the data for a period that also suits you narrative.

This is beyond tedious (for everyone I’m sure) at this point.

keep the stats coming, Aloof, whenever possible…

In my opinion theres a different mindset between NZ and Ireland when it comes to player's ages. In NZ there has long been an attitude of "if you're good enough, you're old enough". Whereas Ireland seem to lean more to player has to prove themselves for a season or 2 before earning a call up.

The flip side of that is that players over 30 were often considered over the hill in NZ and it was time for the shiny new thing. I believe that actually cost NZ through the late 90s and early to mid 2000s.

nash also came in at pretty much the last minute for the france game

Thanks to @Brief_Lives for this excellent table above. Although the stat I'd most like to see is Sam Prendergast's tackle 'success' rate versus Crowley's. (Or even his missed tackles/minute played v Crowley's, & then extrapolate these out to 80 minutes l, to get an apples v apples analysis say)

That won't make pretty reading for SP fan boys imho. As his tackling stats are truly horrendous!!

Also bear in mind SP is hidden in the Irish defence when he plays, putting undue extra work on VDF & Aki to compensate in defence for him, (which takes from the rest of their games), and in weakening the whole Irish defensive set in trying to find a place where SP can hide out in from opposition strike runners who invariably slice him apart when they eventually find his channel. Ireland don't have to do any such weak 10 defending compensation tactics when Crowley is on the park, that in itself, tells it's own story imho.

Lots of stats like that one, available at the official site:

https://www.sixnationsrugby.com/en/m6n/stats/2025