Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

He’d barely played for Munster before that - he was very clearly third choice at Munster prior to that season (behind Joey Carbery and Ben Healy).

its not 'manipulating' anything, its refining the parameters to remove the data before SP broke into the starting team - seeing as that is what is actually in question. posters on here regularly distinguish between overall minutes v minutes against top level opposition so how is this any different?

in the 6Ns (arguably the most important part of this) the ratio of gametime at 10 was 78:22 in Prendergast's favour - whether you think that is 'manipulating' the stats or not, thats not an equal sharing of gametime at 10 in my opinion

Ben Healy is 6 months older (June 1999 v Jan 2000), and I dunno if your argument about Crowley being “always ahead” stands up to scrutiny.

Healy left school in 2018, and was added straight to the Munster Academy that year.

Crowley left school in 2019, but spent a year in the sub-academy before joining the full academy in Sept 2020.

Healy had already made his Munster senior debut almost a year earlier than that (Nov 2019), aged just 20.

Coming into that 22/23 season there is no question who was higher in the pecking order. At that point - Jack Crowley had started 5 total games for Munster, had played in 17 games total for a grand total of 506 mins.

Ben Healy, once again just 6 months older - had at that time racked up 18 starts (more than 3x Crowley), had played in 43 games (2.5x Crowley) for a total of 1,717 mins (3.3x Crowley’s mins at that point).

Thornley's "possible" team; think I'd be happy with this XV, a good few changes but not turning it into a Wolfhounds game where we learn nothing. A bit more youth on the bench would be good though.

Osborne; T O’Brien, Ringrose, Aki/Henshaw, Stockdale; Crowley, Casey; Porter, Kelleher, Clarkson; Ryan, Beirne; Baird, Timoney, Doris (capt).

Replacements: Boyle, Sheehan, Furlong, Henderson/Ahern, Conan/van der Flier, Gibson-Park, Prendergast, Farrell.

I'd be pretty happy with that.

Interesting to see how guys like Stockdale & Timoney go, and good opportunity for Tom Clarkson to keep building from some very good showings.

Centres are becoming a real issue, would like to see Aki/Farrell pairing but we have to start blooding someone else and I know Farrell isnt the answer with his age either but not sure what we learn from Ringrose and or Henshaw playing v Japan. Could we not play someone else at 15 and give Osbourne a run at 13? Sheehan should start at 2, he needs minutes and wasnt great last week. Have to think Beirne is only playing because of not playing last week basically but would like to see him off at 60 minutes.

Caolin Blade is the third scrumhalf in the squad.

Ireland (vJapan):

15. Jamie Osborne (Naas/Leinster)(9)
14. Tommy O’Brien (UCD/Leinster)(3)
13. Tom Farrell (Lansdowne/Munster)*
12. Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster)(82)
11. Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster)(39)
10. Jack Crowley (Cork Constitution/Munster)(27)
9. Craig Casey (Shannon/Munster)(21)

1. Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster)(76)
2. Rónan Kelleher (Lansdowne/Leinster)(40)
3. Thomas Clarkson (Dublin University/Leinster)(8)
4. James Ryan (UCD/Leinster)(73)
5. Tadhg Beirne (Lansdowne/Munster)(62)
6. Ryan Baird (Dublin University/Leinster)(30)
7. Nick Timoney (Banbridge/Ulster)(4)
8. Caelan Doris (St Mary’s College/Leinster)(52)(captain)

Replacements:

16. Gus McCarthy (UCD/Leinster)(6)
17. Paddy McCarthy (Dublin University/Leinster)(1)
18. Finlay Bealham (Corinthians/Connacht)(52)
19. Cian Prendergast (UCD/Connacht)(5)
20. Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster)(52)
21. Caolin Blade (Galwegians/Connacht)(3)
22. Sam Prendergast (Lansdowne/Leinster)(10)
23. Jimmy O’Brien (Naas/Leinster)(10)

Some interesting selections especially in the pack. Looks like Paddy McCarthy may actually have leapfrogged Boyle. Good to see Clarkson and C Prendergast there too.

You literally have the player who started for Ireland during the summer at 15 available.