Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

When the starting 10 was that poor it's hard not to talk about it TBF.

Oh it's all Garry Ringrose's, a player who plays 2 positions outside Crowley, fault of course. You know how this works right? The 10 serves the players outside him, not the other way around. Maybe Ringrose didn't pass because of the garbage being served up to him?

He was rubbish. His kicking from hand was straight up 0/10 and he created absolutely nothing.

Overall a poor performance, did well to manage the red card but losing Beirne was costly and having to bring in henderson earlier than planned didnt help. Set piece is becoming a joke now a days, teams are happy to give us lineouts and wait for us to balls it up or compete against us. A lot of the players looked underplayed, because they have been this season, appreciate the lions tour but other countries have had lions back playing for weeks now. 12 day jolly in the USA didnt prepare the team for this game. Personally I hate these "glamour" games away during the autumn series, both unions must have been well paid for it.

All of which overlooks the fact that, as a team, we kicked significantly more frequently when Crowley was on the pitch as it coincided with Marcus Smith moving to full back. You can ignore that if you want but that is all part of the context. And that tactic worked really well, fwiw.

But ultimately this…

Respectfully

…is all I was asking for.

MOD EDIT

Warning issued

Moving on to next week; the McCloskey injury is really frustrating. I had hoped for four big weeks from him, and maybe he grabs that jersey.

I think, frustratingly, he's going to keep a lot of the same players in the saddle for this one, but hope we'll see some changes.

This is the 23 I'd like to see:

(15-9,1-8):

Jimmy O'Brien, Tommy O'Brien, Tom Farrell, Jamie Osborne, Jacob Stockdale, Jack Crowley, Craig Casey, Paddy McCarthy, Ronan Kelleher, Tom Clarkson, James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne (assuming no suspension), Ryan Baird, Nick Timoney, Caelan Doris

Reps: Gus McCarthy, Jack Boyle, Finlay Bealham, Tom Ahern, Jack Conan, Caolin Blade, Sam Prendergast, Garry Ringrose

Assuming McCloskey is injured

With the following side facing Spain:

Michael Lowry, Robert Baloucoune, Jude Postlethwaite, Dan Kelly, Shayne Bolton, Harry Byrne, Ben Murphy, Michael Milne, Tom Stewart, Tom O'Toole, Evan O'Connell, Darragh Murray, Alex Soroka, Ruadhan Quinn, David McCann

Reps: Lee Barron, Alex Usanov, Scott Wilson, Diarmuid Mangan, Sean Jansen, Fintan Gunne, Jack Murphy, Zac Ward

Assuming James Culhane is injured

I don't see how you you could have more Irish in a combined xv. Yes I think England are probably a better team now. They definitely have way more depth. That is borne out by the bookies odds too. I know its not what we want to hear but it's the truth objectively.

I am not saying we can never beat these teams if we get things right and there always improvements to be made. We don't have the depth of talent of some of our closest competitors.

Not worried about lineout, its been brutal for 3 or 4 years now, we cough up 3 or 4 per game, and our scrum is always seems to be under pressure

Exactly we need new blood, nothing against ringrose but as u say all he seems to do is go for the big defensive hit, his creativity is poor, he is very bad to bring his wingers into play preferring to go himself usually, I'm not saying to discard him totally but give someone else a chance at outside center

Things are never as good as they seem, and never as bad. I expected ireland to lose that game. If you didn't, you are deluded..

Imo, Jury is still out on TOB to take over the mantle on the right wing. Hard worker but maybe not international quality. I will be keen to see how Balacoune goes against Spain.

Looking forward to seeing Farrell at 13, offers a real attacking treat in the 13 channel.

Stockdale has rediscovered his confidence, so excited to see him go. He still looks as though he lost that edge of pace since he broke into the irish team. Injuries taking there toll I imagine.

Shame for McCloskey and the injury. Looked dominant and dangerous on each carry. Haven't seen Mccloskey look as aggressive at the line in a long time.

I think Harry bryne has to jump prendergast in the pecking order.

We already know Crowley is a proven test player based on the 2024 6N and how he played in SA that summer.

We really don't know that, and it's abundantly clear that Andy Farrell didn't either.

We had 5 22 entries, same amount as NZL managed. Maybe the question needs to be rather than the 10 why are we only winning 69% of our lineouts despite having 6 test lions in our pack and then why is our ruck clear out and protection so poor…maybe instead of making excuses let’s actually fix these problems, you could bring Sexton back in at 10…it’s not going to help our test lions win their lineouts and it’s not going to help them clear out and secure ruck ball.

That's literally what I said, so I've no idea what the 'making excuses' bit is about. I literally said that no one player cost us the match and that 80% of them were flat.

I am far more concerned with our backs than our pack. Despite the issues with lineout we had parity up front in terms of possession and territory, its how we used it that bothered me most.

Up front I was happy to see Baird deliver a good performance and Paddy McCarthy looked promising. Agree with everyone that the lineout needs a big fix asap.

Big issues at 10 and 13 and no obvious replacements for me. Farrell and Goodman will need some serious chats about what we are trying to do. Henshaw, Aki, McCloskey and Farrell all in the wrong age bracket regardless of form and we could do with blooding a couple of options but not very fair on guys to be bringing them into a tactical **** show.

I never mentioned the lineout. You said 'we don't need replacements in either position' So I will ask again. Are you happy with the present incumbent of the number 13 Jersey?