2025 Nov 01 | AI's Round 1 | Ireland v New Zealand | 20:10 GMT | VM in Ire / TNT & Discovery+ in UK

Sure we do that and then people complain we aren’t giving youth a chance or building for 2027…

Whatever the Leinster 9 is , that’s the perfect height and size.

According to Wikipedia, Casey is 76kg and Gibson Park is 80kg. Not a huge difference, maybe 5%. Gibson park is 10cm taller so theoretically he's less bulky. We're not privy to their gym stats so hard to know who is physically stronger.

For reference Peter Stringer is listed as playing at 73kg. I myself am about 80kg and 5cm taller again than JGP, technically 'larger' and by God you wouldn't want me anywhere near a rugby pitch. Physical stats aren't very important for the scrum half position.

None of these guys are Conor Murray or Mike Phillips. They have to rely on speed of delivery, accuracy of pass, kicking and a bit of pace to exploit poor fringe defence. If Casey is good enough at those facets of the game then his lack of physique is a moot point.

Craig Casey is a fan favourite because he's small and feisty. He's also a very good SH but he's not going to be the long term SH for Ireland.

I agree with you for the most part, but just like Stringer, Casey could become a very useful no.9 despite his physical limitations. We're not exactly awash with options outside of JGP.

Give the lad in Connacht a few games

Its harder to get dropped from the Irish panel.

It's a very conservative coaching ticket

Comically bad alright. I'm not buying the whole lack of gametime thing as an excuse. These are professional players and coaches.

Some of my thoughts on that (bit of a tome);

• The lineout has been a complete disaster for far too long at this stage. At times it's like the opposition have an almost perfect read on it. We're too often entirely missing a functional (let alone "good") primary attacking platform to play off. It has to be solved and, at this point, I feel that means POC has to be replaced.

• We looked completely stale, and even when we were ahead, it had the feel of a loss to it; we just weren't playing well across the board. You just sensed NZ were going to come back into it, and their bench proved the difference. How much of that is down to - 1) Rustiness from an undercooked Ireland 2) the age profile of the team and / or 3) our exertion to keep in the game when down to 14 players (which we handled really well) - is all open to debate, but it's a huge worry at this point.

• The attack needs a complete re-haul, imo. We're kicking way earlier on our phase play, which looks like it's by design (and doesn't suit Crowley's strength fwiw) but it's awful to watch and isn't as effective when we don't have Keenan on the pitch. Add to that, one of Goodman's strength is his set-piece attack, and without our lineout we're completely deprived of that.

• The red card. For me it was a clear-as-day yellow. I understand the protocol the ref's have to go through, but when you hear "tucked shoulder, no wrap", I'd associate that way more with an Owen Farrel type tackle, than what Beirne did here which was way more passive and had a lower degree of danger. (All class from Beauden Barrett afterwards fwiw).

• Some of Ringrose's defensive reads were way off, and costly, here, and he's not a creative force in our attack (which we more heavily rely on the wingers for).
  Let's hope it's just rustiness, but I think we have a real problem at centre brewing.

• Crowley - No two ways about it, a poor performance from him. Not as bad as made out by some, but worse than his performance last year imo. His kicking from hand was a really big issue here, but I wouldn't be too critical of him for 1) the cross-field kick, it was very nearly on the money and 2) the run back after the Osborne spill; there were plenty there in support that should've cleared out that ruck. (On another day, Osborne takes that and is thru the gap). Interesting to see how what way Farrell goes with regards Japan, and indeed the other 2 Tests. (The comment earlier about Crowley looking great against Ospreys and Zebre is comical tbh…).

• The reviews of the tries are gonna be pretty brutal for some of the players, Ringrose, Casey and VdF in particular.

Of the few positives:

• McCloskey was excellent in his time on the pitch, disappointed to hear of his injury at a time when I think he'd have been our starting 12.
• Baird was excellent defensively at lineout time.
• JGP started really well, kicking in particular, but faded / became more erratic as the game went on.
• TOB went ok, but didn't come looking for work in the same way Hansen does. You'd have expected Hansen to take some of the play-making responsibility off Crowley if he was on the pitch. I actually think TOB was unlucky in the chip-kick from Crowley; I'd like to see it again, but I think Lakai could've been done for obstruction, he seems to look at TOB and not at the ball.
• Conan possibly one of our better performers as well, but that's about it for positives, I think. The likes of Ryan, Porter, Sheehan were all various degrees of pretty quiet / anonymous here.

Which is what’s likely to happen when you’ve no lineout and can’t secure you’re own ruck…

Three Red Kings hosts a Munster fan podcast and wrote for the Examiner on Munster rugby. He's steeped in "provincial crap".

Leinster players have been overused because they're the best this country has produced for the last 5/10 years.

Sorry but what? 'Removes provincial crap' Seriously? It's agenda driven. Good grief.