Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

MOD EDIT

The over criticism of Crowley when he plays ok (not brilliant) is also beyond ridiculous if you ask me. Sure, he made a few errors and tried things that perhaps weren't on, but many players were sub par on Saturday and even the great Beauden Barrett fluffed a few kicks, one particularly badly (the dimensions of the pitch didn't help the kickers IMO).

I'm guessing it's a push back to SP's dropping and the way he is lambasted from left right and centre for every small misdemeanour, which I don't agree with either. His form I believe is suffering at the moment because of it. Must we hammer these two young 10's every time they make mistakes until they're both devoid of any confidence?

Well I would look at the lineout/ruck work AND the number 13. They are not mutually exclusive.

I haven’t seen any pundits or match reports describe Crowley’s performance as poor. If you’ve seen something that specifically rates him that way, could you point it out? From what I’ve read, most analyses have mentioned that he wasn’t at his best but stopped well short of calling it a poor showing.

There may be some of that from certain posters but if you ( generally, not you specifically) are starting to see every post through provincial eyes then you will assume that's the case. If you put your Ireland cap on, Crowley was objectively not great at the weekend. Nothing to do with any other player or his club team, just didn't go great. There were some mitigating factors, quality of possession, quality of opposition, lack of previous opportunity etc. But really Jack won't be happy with how it went for him overall.

That being said, moving on. I would select Jack again this weekend and ask him to deliver the coach's plan and fix a few of the errors and deliver a decent win. I would also be asking Sam to come in with the job done and close it out with a mature performance, no headlines just solid.

Gaaah, forgot that. So, Ryan and Henderson the only options, assuming Ahern is there as a six? Edogbo on the bench?

We should be very capable of handling Japan with Baird or Ahern in the second row I think. Would give a chance for Prendergast to come in at 6.

I'm doubtful Edogbo will be involved, not certain he's rejoining the squad coming off RTP, but I'd welcome his inclusion if he is there.

Can any of you explain the tactics NZ used to beat Ireland? Maybe a list of 3 main approaches they used?

I genuinely don't see how he was poor. A few errors yes, but not poor. The player ratings in most of the publications would back that up. 6/7 out of 10 across the board, which I would say is pretty decent.

I think he was poor. Not our worst player, as I've said, but he did very little well IMO.

He put passes on the ground, kicks out on the full. He missed a very kickable penalty at a crucial time, and his kicking from hand was almost entirely poor - almost every contestable was too far. The clear out was poor on that holding on penalty he conceded, but I was screaming at the TV for him to kick that ball and not get himself isolated, it was a really poor and really costly decision.

Our backline and our attack are being universally slated on here, so the notion that the 10 had a good game in that scenario doesn't make sense. Some of the backs were poor (Ringrose had an awful game), but McCloskey played well at 12 and broke the line any time he carried. I can literally only think of one occasion in the game where we looked fluid (an attack down the left hand side which ultimately led to the try by Furlong) where our attack looked cohesive.

Plenty of Munster fans on here have said they think he was relatively poor too.

What did he do well? What did he do to warrant a 7 out of 10 rating anywhere?

I'm not concerned about beating Japan (they looked awful against SA), but I don't think either Baird or Ahern will end up in the second row long term so I'd rather see them at 6.

I wonder could we see Prendergast at 7?

Look at the retreat from, in particular, AKi and Lowe vs where Holland came from , and that's your answer for why the clearers never had a chance.