Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

And I'm not sure JOB is that much quicker than Osbourne

We wouldn't be in this conundrum if Farrell picked players in form. Lowry playing out of his skin this season and can't get a look in. Baloucoune wasting time playing for the A team. Boltyn sitting in the stands. Frawley could be on the 23, given all of the lads picked cover 11-15 to various levels.

There's no excuse for playing lads out of position to accommodate Henshaw

No, because I don't think he's infallable whether he wins or loses. I wouldn't make a ridiculous argument in a discussion forum that the proof that a player isn't good enough, is that he hasn't been picked.

Counter factuals are impossible to prove. Ireland could scrape a win in the 6 nations with this team, or we could have won a grand slam with a better coached or selected team. In a discussion forum, we should be allowed to advocate for changes to our national team without someone trying to shut down the debate with an appeal to authority and unseen training ground work.

We could scrape a win in this upcoming 6 nations at the expense of the RWC in 2027 Its perfectly legitimate to criticise a coach if I think his win now strategy is coming at the cost of future performances.

I think he should be selecting bigger training squads and playing more players in meaningful games in rotation, instead of playing the same players for every big game, and then playing some scratch teams in A games or some rotation for Tier 2 opposition like Japan

This weekend, Thomas Ahern should have been on the bench at least. Play Baird at 2nd row from the start if he wants to give him time in that position, and have Ahern on the bench. If Ryan needs gametime to build up match fitness, play him, but Beirne doesn't need to play. He has already shown he is up to speed in the Leinster game and has plenty of minutes on the clock this calendar year and could easily be rested for the Japan game.

The Tom Farrell story needs telling.

Just brilliant to see a player like that reach the pinnacle despite getting rejected again and again and again.

Coolmine RFC, Castleknock, Lansdowne, 2013 U-20 World Cup (Thnks Mike Ruddock), Leinster academy, London Irish (A's), Bedford.

He only played half a season at Bedford and only because of an Injury crisis at Connacht he was signed up.

A great story and I hope he has a stormer on Saturday.

Mod Edit

Warning issued.

You know what I'm referring to here. Osborne's best position is in the centres. We have an opportunity to give him playing time there, given the schedule and availability of guys playing 15 for the Provinces. Instead he's stuck at 15, we're playing the corpse of Henshaw at 12, and guys like Lowry and JOB (who was only included in the squad after Hansen got injured) can't get a look in despite playing well for their teams this season.

We could be playing JOB 15, Stockdale 11, Osborne 12 and Frawley 23, which would be an exciting team and afford coverage across the entire back line 10-15. We don't need Henshaw to beat Japan. JOB is more than good enough at FB to to deal with any aerial threats. It's an utterly self inflicted own goal of a selection.

Sadly, I'm sure Farrell would've picked an even more conservative choice if all his favs were healthy. That's not a positive imo.

Frawley on the bench in my hypothetical would require little shifting in the event of 1 injury in the backs. All of Osborne, JOB and Stockdale have shown they can play wing and FB to an international standard. JOB can play in the centre to boot. It would require pretty minimal disruption.