Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I would think people have a firm basis to also say - Yes the coaches have superior knowledge but are they making the correct selections to push beyond the glass ceiling of Irish rugby?

Advancing beyond a Quarterfinal of a World Cup.

It’s a valid question.

It’s not a question anymore.

Ireland basically lost to NZ in the QF because they were knackered.

I see Ian Madigan making the same point today.

In 2023, our strongest squad beat South Africa on September 23rd, had a full week off, and then played Scotland on October 7th. We had 5 tries on the Scots after 44 mins, and we substituted James Lowe after 41 mins, Johnny Sexton after 45 mins and then all of Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, Beirne and O'Mahony after 48 mins.

So - when we faced NZ on October 14th, most of our main forwards and guys like Johnny Sexton had played barely any rugby in the preceding three weeks. We shat the bed in the first 20 mins against NZ and gave them a big head start, but we didn't lose that game because of tiredness in the squad.

Guys were obviously tired during the multi-phase sequence at the end of the game (and after an incredibly tough and absorbing game), but the notion they were overplayed coming into that game doesn't stack up to me.

It stacks up to me.
Even Look at the amount of minutes the forwards played in the group.

Basically full strength in all of those games.

Beirne played the full 80

v Romania

v Tonga??

v SA

Stated v Scotland and played 50

NZ forwards had nothing like that.
AND they had a full 8 day rest before the game after a facile win over Uruguay.

Ireland had 6 days.

That’s before we look at the backs…starting with the 38 year old 10 and 33 year old 12 who both looked bollicksed by the 60th minute of that NZ game.

Should we have played a second team against Scotland?

Could not disagree more that we lost the NZ game because we were tired. Posts above have run the numbers, the players had plenty of rest. The older cohort had played about 40 mins in the past 3 weeks, if they can't manage that we had no hope in the first place.

I don't know why people can't just accept that it was an extremely high quality game with razor tight margins, and someone had to lose.

The width of Jordie Barrett's leg, some absolutely shite refereeing at the scrum, Ireland's slow start to the game (note - slow start, not slow finish), Sexton missing a kick he gets 95 times out of 100, Doris dropping a basic restart that he catches 999 times out of 1000. It was such a close game that all these things had a huge influence.

Saying "played in the group" doesn't adequately reflect the fact that the tournament started on September 9th, and it was more than a month later (14th October) by the time we were playing NZ.

Tadhg Beirne played 287 minutes in the 35 days before played NZ. For clarity - that's 3.5 games in 5 weeks.

When Ireland won the 6 Nations earlier that year (42 days start to finish) plenty of players racked up well over 330 minutes over the same time period.

You picked out Tadhg Beirne, as he had played the most minutes, but the average for our starting forward pack & replacements that day was 166.5 mins (just over 2 games in 5 weeks), and the average for the starting pack was 2.7 games over a 5 week period.

If you're seriously saying we can't sustain that amount of wear and tear over that length of time and frame then there is honestly no hope for us.

It also doesn't address the fact that for a team that was "knackered" how we were the team who were finishing the game much stronger, we were pushing to win the game at the death and had a try held up in the last 10 mins.

Did we need to start a 38 year old v Romania and then Tonga and then SA and then Scot?

That’s the real question. The answer is no.

My point was actually exactly about the end of the game.

However. I can also surmise fatigue plays a role at start of the game. Nervousness is heightened when one feels fatigued. That very much could “contributed to us to getting into a 13-0”

Add in the very fact that NZ were also much fresher.

However. I can also surmise fatigue plays a role at start of the game. Nervousness is heightened when one feels fatigued. That very much could “contributed to us to getting into a 13-0”

Since you're so focused on Sexton. Once again:

Between 24th of Sept (day after SA game) and Oct 13th (day before NZ game) he played 44 minutes of rugby. This is a period of 3 weeks. Do you genuinely believe a professional rugby player would be suffering from fatigue at the beginning of a game having played for 44 minutes in the prior 3 weeks?

This does not stand up to any scrutiny.

It stands up to scrutiny because the man in question could barely stand up near the end of the game

He was 38

Also to add, NZ had their rest week earlier in their pool than Ireland. So when the Irish squad had their feet up in the rest week after Scotland, NZ were playing a match. Ireland had 1 game in the 3 weeks before the QF, NZ had 2 games in the 3 weeks before the QF. So they'd played more minutes more recently than we had. Once again, this fatigue argument stands up to no scrutiny whatsoever.

Should we have started Crowley instead of Sexton the week before?

Should we have started Crowley instead of Sexton in any of the weeks before?

it more than stands up to scrutiny

It’s fact

NZ played their last game on the 5th of October

Ireland played their last game on 7th of October

NZ had a younger team

NZ were able to rest 6 players

Ireland rested how many?

That’s right. None.

Add in the previous workload and you get what you saw.

It is a balancing act, the fact is the majority of the squad is aged between 25-30 years old (47% of the squad). For context only 27% of the squad is +31 years old and therefore will likely be passed their peak come 2027…for context, SA who everyone thinks does an amazing job preparing for RWC’s has 51% of its squad from the RC +31…

I know it doesn’t fit the narrative to say Ireland are actually doing a decent job squad building…but they are. The point is now making sure the TEAM reflects this, there needs to be at least 7-8 players from this 25-30 age group consistently in the side then a fair chunk of older/younger players involved.