Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

it has to do with the difference in points, not the difference in position numbers.

Timing was an issue last time. The seeding was decided much earlier based on where Ireland was ranked at the beginning of 2020. World Rugby used January 2020 rankings due to the Covid disruptions to international match schedules. Top seeds were South Africa, New Zealand, England and Wales (!) and 2nd seeds were Ireland, Australia, France and Japan. Third seeds were Scotland, Fiji, Argintina and Italy. We subsequently went on an unbeaten run to rise to no.1 ranking while Wales went backwards so we got a terrible pool and Wales and England got a handy ones.

Do the 6Ns matches count as well towards the competition or is it completely separate?

Edit - never mind it seems it isn't considered which I thought was the original plan.

Im talking to myself now but it looks like all 6 NH teams play the 6 SH teams and are then ranked 1st to 6th in each hemisphere based on those results. Each country then plays the equivalent ranked team in the other hemisphere in the play offs at Twickenham at the end of November.

It's not actually a bad format, but as per above the travel for the NH teams is problematic

Ah that's better I guess. Sort of screws Japan over but that's their problem.

McCloskey another one of those guys who if he didn't have bad luck he'd have no luck at all.

Feels like there was a real opportunity for him here to make that 12 shirt his own right now, but the constant niggly injuries always set him back.

This happened back in 2022 too (against the Boks) - he was playing really well and had to come off with injury after 26 mins. Was playing well against the All Blacks a few weeks ago and had to go with the game in the balance, and now same here, and misses a game next week where he'd have been a big factor for us.

Mack was class the other night, but moving him full-time to 15 is premature - he has a long way to go to usurp Keenan, when Hugo's fit.

I definitely wouldn't play Aki ahead of Henshaw, but just wonder will Farrell look at the size of the Saffers and think he needs more power, even if Aki has not exactly been rampaging over people lately. Henshaw was good against Australia despite the doom and gloom, as he was against Japan, so he deserves to be kept.

I agree re Prendergast, I would still start Crowley this week.