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

I didn't think it was a red card as I thought the force was low. But i can also see why it was given. Good that it was rescinded for us.

This started when I expressed the possible reason for a player not being selected. You said fans show know why players are not selected. I then explained it would be a completely tiresome to go through the process of player A over B over C.

You took exception to the Tiresome remark. Also to my assertion that the coach had better things to do.

Then you want on a rant about journalists. You, not me. I never mentioned journalists in any of my posts.

I do realise this is all smoke and mirrors to deflect from the non selection of a player. FFF posted an explanation of why a coach should not explain every decision on selection. You offered no credible alternative.

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We have a coach who is keeping players fresh and looks to give everyone minutes. He's started young players in various games, while keeping the experience on the bench. Munster were able to bring on Coombes and Kleyn as impact in the game you are referring to. And we all know how that worked out.

The Munster players are responding very well, knowing that they will get a fair shot, something seriously lacking in the Irish team at the moment. Andy is are not driving competition among the player pool that's available to him.

The direction you were taking was deflection of what I was discussing. In other words to drag the topic away from the reason of a non selection. Further that that reasons were given why a coach shouldn't have discuss his selections to a rant about journalists.

It was clear as day you wanted away from that aspect and kept your obsession with journalists as the main topic.

Clear deflection. Of course you now blame me for changing course. Not unexpected.

Between this thread and the Ireland one we must have 6 pages on Gavin Coombes. It's harking back to the threads on why Simon Zebo wasn't getting Kearneys jersey under Schmidt. And it's a bit tedious.

I do think Coombes is a real option for bashing up the middle if that's what Ireland want to go with. Funnily enough after watching Leinster getting held up over the line so much in Europe (and Ireland to a lesser extent) I was thinking Coombes rarely fails to deliver from close range…from the bits I've seen anyway.

However, he simply isn't as good as Doris or Conan. It's just unfortunate for the lad. Two high achieving Lions starters compete for the same position.

He seems a decent fellah, and even as a Leinster fan I admired his cheeky grin when yellow carded.

Doris, I'd agree, I do think he's at least on a par with Conan personally. I'd take him over Conan in the Munster team, maybe others see that one differently. I remember us beating Leinster well in Thomond years ago (2016?) but Conan stood out that night on a losing team, he went way up in my estimation after that game, he's a very good player.

For me, the only thing Coombes doesn't have is pace - he takes lineout ball, good passer (threw a beauty as 9 from the base of the ruck over distance the other night to keep the attack going, he's not just a bosh merchant by any means), offloads, ties in defenders, pretty unstoppable from 5m out (50-odd tries in 120-odd appearances is an incredible rate for any player, let alone a forward), great engine, offensive/defensive ruck work and tackle rate is off the charts most of the time, showed last season he can cover 2nd row in a pinch. Been a bit annoyed by a bit of ill-discipline recently with him, 3 yellow cards in the last 10 months, he only had 1 yellow card in his whole career before that in 2022 or something.

We don't know if he can do all that internationally like he can at URC/Heineken level as he simply hasn't gotten game-time. He's unlucky like you said that he's got 2 fine players ahead of him and there's been enough speculation as to why he hasn't gotten much of a look beyond the odd training camp and thimbleful of caps… maybe that is the answer in itself as others have said, I'm a bit baffled otherwise but I guess the coaches have their reasons.

Him being more free for Munster is the upside, there's a very good case that he's been our best player over the last 5 years (along with Beirne obviously).

Be careful there. I said something similar about Coombes last year, having heard it from more than one AIL coach in Munster, and I nearly got lynched for it.

That has always been the rumour for his exclusion. We have an approach in Irish rugby of the individuals ability to slot into the system being more important than the individuals talent. Zebo had the same issue with Schmidt.

It begs the question though, should we be making allowances for 1 or 2 game breaker type players in the match day squad even if they're not a system fit? Gives us the opportunity to change up a game from the bench if things aren't going our way with our systems approach. We seem to be slaves to the system and now that the system is malfunctioning why not utilise some individual talent?

Having 1 forward with Coombes' power and one back 3 player with electric pace on the bench gives us options. There may not be an obvious option in the pace department right now but we should be trying to unearth someone with that skill set.

Agree on Zebo to an extent, he did appear poorly conditioned throughout his career. But perhaps he may have been a net gain despite that?

The demographics are changing in Ireland due to inward migration and that may help us unearth some power athletes for rugby. Examples such as Baloucoune, Izuchukwu and Edogbo spring to mind. Not trying to racially stereotype here either but the expansion of the gene pool will unearth more of these types of athletes.

My question is, are we too wedded to systems and structure to recognise the value of a couple of these types of power / pace athletes in the match day squad?

World rugby is just clueless. Not only is the red card rescinded but the match was stopped for a whole 6 minutes. And rugby players are no safer from potential head knocks. The French ref was from the derek bevan school of pedantry.

I agree that immigration will help Ireland produce better athletes due to genetics. We're seeing it already in soccer, track and now rugby. Read an interesting article on the impact of Nigerian players on English rugby. Think it was around the time that Itoje was named Lions captain.

One thing I'm curious about is the lack of eastern European descendants, particularly Polish, in rugby. I believe the Polish are the biggest immigrant community in Ireland but can't think of a Polish-Irish rugby player. The eastern European players I can think of are Usanov and Soroka but I'm not sure where their families are from.

I did hear a rumour that Cian Healy was actually of Lithuanian descent and was adopted but I have no idea if that's true or my mate's mate was talking shite.

Hahahaha- my wife told me the same thing before about Cian Healy, but it's definitely not the case.

Alex Usanov and Alex Soroka are both of Ukrainian origin, but born in Ireland.

I've seen some guys from Eastern European backgrounds (Polish, Lithuanian etc) playing at underage levels, and Shane Horgan Cup and things like that, but the only ones who've played highish level representative rugby that spring to mind to me are the Nowak twins from Cork, who've played Munster A and underage etc.