Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Anyone with a functioning pair of eyes can tell that Crowley is a better athlete than Prendergast. He is more likely to trouble the line or make a break. Prendergast is a marginally better passer and he's a better kicker but claims that he's more agile or athletic are well wide of the mark. Unfortunately though you are wasting your breath. A poster on here claimed that Crowley isn't international standard last week, despite him leading us to our largest ever victory in France in his debut season as our starting fly half. France, that place where Irish teams famously flourish. Still, that same poster claimed that the same thing of Kleyn and promised to stop posting here if something as outrageous and unlikely as him getting selected for South Africa ever occurred.

I think the point other people are making is that a better balance could be struck.

You're right, you don't want him going in completely cold against SA. But equally, did he need to played 80 mins against all of England, Samoa, Romania and Tonga in the lead? Probably not.

As I said, I don't have a strong opinion either way on this argument, but the Irish players did have more minutes going into the QF than the other teams. Now, did that contribute to fatigue into the QF, given the weeks involved? I don't know tbh. But I think it's fairly reasonable to suggest there's a conversation / debate to be had on it, where people will have different opinions.

And yes a large part of the high number of minutes is the vagaries of how the fixtures fell, a completely fair point. But they did have more minutes.

For the 23s in that game, NZ's players averaged 151 mins, Ireland's 181 across the tournament to date. All of this analysis totally ignores the fact that NZ's rest week was between Rounds 2 and Round 3 (between Italy and Namibia fixtures) and ours was between Rounds 3 and Rounds 4 (between SA and Scotland)

There were 3 full weeks from when we played South Africa till when we played NZ.

In those 3 weeks, our players played one game against Scotland. In that game, we took substantially our whole pack off after less than 50 mins (Lowe left after 40 mins, Sexton after 44 mins, and all of Beirne, Sheehan, Porter, Furlong and O'Mahony off after 47 mins).

What more rotation was reasonably to be expected given we hadn't assured our qualification for the QFs till we won that game?

In the same 3 week period before the Irish game, NZ played 2 games. So for the two sides that faced off on 14th October, the NZ players had played an average of 79.7 minutes in the preceding three weeks, and the Irish players had played an average of 44.8 minutes in the same time period. The preceding three weeks are surely a more relevant timeframe if we're talking about fatigue or tiredness that stuff that happened more than 2 months prior.

It is worth remembering that Scotland had given SA a decent game and while we were favourites to win, it was not a done deal by any stretch, and it's also worth remembering that given what we saw in the opening match, avoiding France by topping the pool was very much the target. There's no way we were going to send out the second string.

We had to play Beirne against Scotland because Ryan was injured, but he was taken off 48 minutes, as was Sexton. 48 minutes of rugby in the two weeks prior to the NZ game is not a big ask.

Finally, 80 minutes against Romania or Tonga is not the same as 80 minutes against a tier 1 country, especially for a forward.

And the starting 15's averaged 167 mins for NZ vs 250 for Ireland.

But that's all pretty reasonable FTD, and I wouldn't disagree with it. I certainly wouldn't have expected us to rotate vs Scotland, for example, given qualification wasn't assured.

Gerry Thornley floated the idea that we should try get Carbery back, as I think he's out of contract at the end of this season? Not saying he would be the starter, but it's not an awful shout, if he could be persuaded to come back to, say, Ulster or Connacht. You'd imagine he'll command a reasonably big wedge tho.

I would imagine McCarthy/Milne was 50/50. Possibly went with McCarthy as he is 4 years younger but who knows. Would have preferred Milne went from a selfish perspective as Leinster are completely decimated in the front row for their game vs Zebre next week.

The centres are a worry in general with all 30+. Would have liked Hume or Gavin (probably Gavin), even Hugh Cooney who I think has something about him, ahead of Henshaw.

Irish Rugby Inc. shouldn't spend any sort of significant money on Carbery.

He went on the summer tour & they didn't look at him.

In fairness, Milne got two caps off the bench, in addition to whatever they saw in training. Maybe he just didn't impress?

But tbh, I think this is more about McCarthy's promise than a reflection on Milne. Based on the season so far, the guy might already have overtaken Boyle at Leinster.

I agree Farrell has been excellent and more than deserving a slot, but adding another 32 year old to a group of aging centres isn't ideal and is probably what is going against him. Ringrose is a better player imo but if there is an injury to him, could definitely see Farrell getting a call and starting at 13 while he would be out.

So you agree that Crowley, and indeed Prendergast, aren't "genuine international level players"?

I think that's an extremely harsh reading on both of them tbh, and I'd don't think it's outlandish to disagree with that view, or indeed call it "nonsense".

I think it's a reflection of the absolute dearth of options in the LHP position across the provinces, that when a guy shows good potential they have little choice but to accelerate his development. Worth noting Michael Milne is a relatively known prospect to the coaches - he's been in camp a few times, he's 25. They know his strengths and they know his weaknesses.

On the point around "who packed down beside him in the front row" - yeah, against the Sharks he had Furlong & Kelleher in the front row, but worth noting he had Baird & Deeny in the second row - hardly a heavyweight scrummaging combo there.

He also did well against the Bulls scrum - where he had Gus McCarthy & Tom Clarkson alongside him, and Baird & Deeny in the row behind. I'm intrigued to see how he goes this weekend with a proper heavyweight lock duo behind him.

I absolutely don't - as I've made clear countless times on here. I rate both players very highly. But that the wasn't the point I was making in the post you quoted at all.

Over the 10 days or that poster has said all of the following around this debate and the wider Irish team selection on this thread:

Anyone with a functioning pair of eyes can tell that Crowley is a better athlete than Prendergast.

 The level of gaslighting and goal post moving undertaken by a regular cohort of posters on here against anyone with a dissenting opinion is ridiculous.

Some amount of rubbish posted on here but what's new.

You get the feeling that some posters constantly repeat the same dross in the hope that it becomes the prevailing narrative.

The entire debate on here is extremely dishonest but that's par for the course.

This is what my comment about the bias piece (which affects all of us for the most part on here) was about. Disagree with the view fine, but this goes a good bit further than that.