Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Farrell was staying true to his own selection policy and philosophy. He knows what he wants on the pitch and backs the players to perform when it matters. It's what has led to such success for Ireland.

Tadhg Beirne didn't start the tour well either yet ended up as player of the series. James Ryan wasn't great in the warm ups yet was selected for the second test and had an excellent 20 minutes cameo off the bench and was rewarded with a starting berth for the third test.

Bookies at this stage have NZ by 5. Can’t argue with that. We can’t be any worse than we were last time we played them anyway!

Finger In the air and pulling stats from my h0le, I'd say 60:40 in Crowley's favour

6:2 bench split might mean start Prendergast and have Crowley on the bench to cover 15 and 12 in an emergency. Otherwise start Crowley and have Frawley on the bench and no Prendergast.

5-3 split leave more scope.

Before the start of the season, I didn't see any other outcome other than Prendergast at 10 come Chicago, but with the way their respective seasons' have gone, I think Crowley has forced Farrell's hand here. I think he nearly has to start him.

It's quite a testament to how things have evolved and where the expectations are for Irish rugby now, that even when our form has been relatively poor and there are question marks around our match sharpness at a minimum, we are still only 5 point underdogs going in to face the All Blacks.

I'm not confident about the game at all tbh, just feel it's come at the wrong time in the calendar for us. Molecast talked about this recently, that the IRFU are using the window where we were ranked #1 in the world to really cash in and play the biggest teams during these November windows to maximise revenues, but it arguably doesn't always set us up as well as it could outside of the revenue benefit.

A reason not to start SP is Jordie Barrett knows his game inside out and in particular his faults, at times he could be seen coaching SP when he was at Leinster.

Don't mind who plays 10 but really hope we don't go 6-2.

The O Briens aren't brothers, the Osbornes are (I think).

The answer is Osborne seems to be the back-up at the moment. It was Jimmy o Brien a couple of years ago. JOB was in Ireland squads at the time and was starting a lot at full back for leinster around the same time.

Jamie Osborne was around but hadn't really broken through at the time. Since he's broken through he's looked best at 12 (in my opinion) , but he's being shoehorned into squads in full back, on the wing and at 13 (I think). Barrett kept him out of 12 last year when he might have competed with Henshaw for the 12 jersey. And this season Keenan is injured so they seem to be focusing on playing him at 15 for both leinster and Ireland. Open to correction on that, but that's how I remember it.

Beyond that, the 3 O'Brien twins - Jimmy is out of favour (not sure why), Tommy is in favour and they're both being coached by older brother, Seán

Im not sure any of his performances last year before the 6N put him ahead of SP in many peoples minds. He wasn't 'poor' but he wasn't doing enough to hang onto the jersey either.