Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Nah, I disagree. I still don't think he's ready now realistically, his scrummaging is not up to the level required IMO. He absolutely wasn't ready back in the 6N immediately after the RWC, when he was 21 years old.

It's a position with virtually no options, so we've accelerated Boyle & McCarthy (after McCarthy did a serious year of S&C from his U20 days, where he put on enormous size in c. 12 months), and I think McCarthy will become a really good long term option there for Leinster & Ireland, but I don't think either were really an option in the 2024 Six Nations.

I mean I did point out that Crowley, Byrne and Carbury had all started games in the previous 12 months. byrne and crowley numerous games and against tier 1 nations. In the world cup the only real gripe was leaving sexton on so long against romania and those minutes would hardly have turned Crowley into Dan Carter. Sexton was taken off at half time in the last 2 group games if I remember correctly.

The idea that we didn't do all we could to have an alternative to Sexton at the world Cup is just Sh1t stirring imo. The options weren't there. Carbery was the man and was injured and out of form to the extent that Crowley forced him out at Munster and Crowley then got fast tracked (rightly) into starting that Australia game in 2022.

I think it's clear and obivous that Club form gets you into camp and then you have to earn a spot on the team so I disagree on your second point. My oriningal point was that talking about coombes is wasting time is behind Prendergast who is 3rd choice 8 more than likely. I wouldn't expect the third choice 8 to get much game time not to mind the 4th choice, if that's what Coombes is. It's totally derailing the conversation talkign about a position where we are very well stocked for no apparent reason

There’s not a single area of Cian Healy’s game that he’s better than Boyle at, not to mention that he doesn’t have the engine Boyle has.

If you don’t think Boyle is ready than fair enough but if he’s not ready than Healy, who’s inferior, shouldn’t have been anywhere near an Irish side to begin with.

There are no options because we’ve ensured there are no options by not blooding anyone and wasting all the potential minutes or caps on a 37 year old who was nowhere near good enough. What I saw from Boyle last season he was clearly better than Healy and if Healy was good enough to make an Irish 23 than so was Boyle.

A concept that we seem to struggle with in Ireland is a word called “patients”. What we do in Ireland is cap a young player, expect them to be amazing straight away, and then when the unrealistically high expectations aren’t reached they are chucked out and the older option (who ironically never reach those heights either) is drafted in because they make fewer mistakes. It’s this sort of mindset that leads Ireland to having 35/36 year olds constantly in the 23 and has plagued Irish rugby for years.

Likes I’ve said before, I’ve seen Boyle plenty for Leinster and he’s comfortably ready to make the step up…those who think otherwise either haven’t actually watched him or have made their mind up before even giving him a chance.

Have you been living under a rock?

Cian Healy, likely right now today if forced to go put the boots on, would still be capable of holding up a scrum at the highest levels. That's a pretty fundamental part of the props job description, and it's something he is way way better still than Jack Boyle at.

I'm not saying Boyle won't get there, but he isn't there yet, and definitely wasn't back in February 2024 as an undersized 21-year old.

Boyle definitely is pacier, better around the field, a better ball carrier at that point in Healy's career etc, but Boyle's biggest weakness remains his scrummaging, and the only reason Healy was still being selected until the end was because he remained a capable and competent scrummager.

We didn't "chuck Boyle out" for the older option - he never really got a place in the main Irish 23 to begin with, directly because of the weaknesses I'm describing above. He's lost his role (very early sample tbc) to a guy who is younger and less experienced too, so unsure how that figures into your logic here.

Also, fwiw, I'm pretty sure the spelling of the word you're looking for is 'patience' - patients are people who are receiving medical treatment.

Does any part of you accept that people who know a lot more than you (namely the Leinster & Irish coaches) about Jack Boyle's scrummaging and all around game, simply felt he wasn't ready and held him back because of that? When an even younger player has emerged now who looks like he can do the most fundamental requirement of a prop, he's been elevated.

I don't realistically see how Paddy McCarthy could have been expected to make the leap he has any earlier than he has - he needed to put on a lot of size coming out of underage rugby, but now they look to be fully backing him.

But that is utterly irrelevant in Boyle vs Healy (which itself is utterly irrelevant now)

ignoring the form thing for now, but can you show where youre getting the 60/40 split at 10 from? JC didnt get much gametime in the 6Ns and apart from England and Italy it was in different positions?

i know people say he was fast tracked into the team against aus in 2022, but really it was more a freak run of injuries to Frawley, Carbery and Sexton that lead to Crowley starting that game. I'd imagine if Sexton was fit he would have gotten little to no gametime

Its debateable as to where club form gets you into camp also to be honest. Crowley and Prendergast are good examples of this, neither had that much gametime at senior level before being brought in and JC had mainly being playing 12/15. you then go on to mention coombes who has shown pretty great club form over the years despite not getting into numerous squads - much as i take the point that the 3rd choice is unlikely to get much gametime

In the past 12 months, Crowley has gotten 425 mins, Prendergast has gotten 551.

That works out as 44% of the mins for Crowley.

Some of those mins weren’t at 10, but I don’t have that detail. It’s still a fairly even distribution of mins however you shake it out.

For me it was defensively in particular where I'm not sure the benefits of Healy at scrumtime were outweighing the downsides. Top of my head, but I think there were 2 occasions where he was stepped pretty badly, leading to tries in the 6 Nations.

If you go back to the start of the AI's last year, as far as I can make out, Crowley has 425 mins total, 379 of them at 10, while Prendergast has 551 total.

I was in favour of Crowley starting ahead of Prendergast as much as anyone on here, but when looked into in detail, the ratio is 60:40 to Prendergast over the last 12 months.

I'm going to move on from the Gavin Coombes topic as it has become pointless. I'll pick it up again in the spring when he's not selected for the 6N squad.

Instead this is the 23 I'd like to see play on Sat, based on the players selected in the squad. Not expecting it to be what's selected but I'd like to see us do something like this to explore our options in several positions.

1. P McCarthy

2. D Sheehan

3. T Furlong

4. T Aherne

5. T Beirne

6. R Baird

7. N Timoney

8. C Doris

9. C Casey

10. S Prendergast

11. J Lowe

12. J Osborne

13. G Ringrose

14. T O'Brien

15. J O'Brien

16. A Porter

17. G McCarthy

18. T Clarkson

19. J Ryan

20. C Prendergast

21. J Gibson Park

22. J Crowley

23. T Farrell

Should be a team well capable of beating Japan at home plus it gives a chance for new players to stake their claim.