Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

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.

Britney at second row? Too prone to a Spears tackle to be trusted IMO.

I'll get my coat....

I'd be very dissapointed if any province took Carbery certainly if it was as a 10. Media seem to be trying to set him for a move to connacht a bit like they did pushing eddie os for the coaching job. And it seems some of the fans from the other 3 provinces think it's a good idea for him to come back as long as it's not to their team

Let’s wait until they actually qualify before we start organising standing ovations. At this rate we’ll be giving out medals for turning up

People around here would literally wet themselves if we made past a WC 1/4 final when we are top 5 in the world. Hungary are 30 spots above us in rankings, Portugal almost 60. We have zero pro soccer teams. Beating Portugal and Hungary in the space of a few days is arguably a bigger achievement than the rugby team has ever achieved.

Cool story.

Great few days for Irish Football alright. What's it got to do with the rugby team?

The Cricket team have a game today, should they all do some kind of celebration for the football team aswell? Think there is an athletics meeting this weekend too actually. They should all clap before each race for Ireland getting to the playoffs in the football.

I like football, support a club and Ireland, but there is a strange need for many Irish football fans to talk down every other sport and constantly say how great football is and how terrible rugby, GAA, golf etc is.

You defintiely experienced GAA in an outlier place in that case as that's not even close to the norm.

On the rugby front, team selection is interesting again this week. I would love to see Mccarthy get another start with Porter held in reserve but I could see how that might be too much of a risk. As someone said above the Australia game has quitened some of the doom merchants for a while and taking a step back and looking at it broadly there's been a decent amount of change int he squad over the last year and a half. I do think though if you're not in now it's going to be very difficult to get a sniff of the squad before the world cup (rightly so but tough on a few lads who've been mentioned on here as possible additions like Doak, the Connacht centers, Gleeson etc.) could still see Edogbo / aherne once fit as they are the kind of physical freak athlete who might be dropped in joe Mccarthy style

Poor effort. 0/10. Must do better

in what way was it a poor effort, what reading between the lines am I missing?

He needs to back Crowley or Prendergast. And SA is the ultimate test at the moment.