Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

We have decent candidates for those positions and real depth elsewhere, for once. Seeing how good the A team could be gives me some confidence that it’s not as grim as it looked 6 months ago. Mad to think VDF may become a bench option rather than a dead cert starter. And would be nice to see one of the possibles join the party on the wing, there’s still room for another solid pick on the left.

I would definitely go with Crowley, and I'm a Leinster supporter. I can see our scrum and line-out coming under a lot of pressure on Saturday, so if we can win, it'll be built on a good defence, and we all know that's not going to happen when the rest of the team can't rely on the out-half to do his bit.

https://www.the42.ie/ireland-springboks-possible-6879349-Nov2025/

Prendergast, VdF, Ringrose, Aki all may or may not be starting according to Kinsella.

Sam starting could well damage his career prospects because SA will certainly target him. Crowley sidelined again, let's hope both play against each other again at Christmas

The chances of Ireland winning now are gone in my opinion

People sh*tting on the player before the team has even officially been announced.

He's been better than Crowley in the series, even with his glaring weaknesses.

People willing to sh*t on the player instead of backing him deserve no success from this team. Awful behaviour.

i agree with what youre saying overall, but i think the first two lines of the second part are quite telling of the overall problem about this whole discussion/ issue/ whatever you want to call it

both 10 options are coming in for alot of unfair criticism and arguably SP is probably getting the majority of that. a decent amount of it is coming from people who unfortunately are just being arseholes and are going to be unhappy with him for whatever reason. a decent enough proportion will however are unhappy with how much he is being 'bigged up' despite not really earning it - you refer to him as 'phenomenal' for example but the reality is that he simply just isnt. he is a very talented player by all means and im sure he will continue to improve, but he isnt anywhere near that yet. similarly, the line thats thrown out regularly is that SP 'has a higher ceiling' - which means almost nothing when it comes down to it - JJ Hanrahan had a massive ceiling coming into senior rugby but he has never won an ireland cap (much as he has had a perfectly decent career)

ultimately all of this type of talk is unfair to SP himself as it is hyping him up way too much before he actually shows that much. Harry Byrne had the same before him although maybe not to the same extent and it looks like Casper Gabriel is getting the same now - its just setting up these young players to fail imo

Is he really though? He's a better kicker for sure but I don't really see this world class phase play aspect.

He had a nightmare against New Zealand and played well against Japan and Australia.
At present I'd have Australia and Japan on a similar level. Australia only beat Japan by 4 points a few weeks ago.

In the Japan game, Ireland scored three tries with Crowley on the field and three tries with Prendergast on the field.
It was the same again for the Australia game. How are people coming to the conclusion that he is a far better player offensively.

In the 6 nations, Prendergast had some good games but some clunkers as well. The hyperbole around him is ridiculous.
He is world class with kicking from hand, solid at phase play and terrible at tackling.
It seems to happen with every new Leinster out half though. I'm sure Casper Gabriel will be called world class as well in a few years.

I think a lot of peoples frustrations come from the fact that Crowley came into this series the form player and AF said he was running things in camp, got a bum deal v NZ with a half baked team around him with so many returning Lions, got just over a half v Japan, scored a try, kicked his points, again with a team not firing, which I dont think you can put down to the 10, and now seemingly has fallen back behind SP again, who I think everyone can admit came into the series not playing well and hasnt really set the world alight during games. I think its hard to understand what Crowley needs to do. People keep going on and on about SP ceiling, when do we see this. His ceiling needs to include defence which at the moment it doesnt. Watch his game play, I've never seen so many phases where a 10 isnt involved. I understand the arguement of giving both 10's game time and developing options so we dont have the same issue with Sexton being our only 10 like the last world cup, but the chopping and changing cant be doing anything positive for either players confidence. Also with so much chopping and changing does this mean both Munster and Leinster lose their 10's for key games due to player welfare, despite the fact that they are playing less and less game time. Will Crowley be available for the Stormers game for Munster next weekend or will he have to be rested before Bath and Gloucester, or will we have the same issue with the internationals being rested for the inter pro's in Dec. I think thats part of the problem at the moment in mho, people dont see players playing as much as players would have in the past and yet then are rested for what feels like big big games. Anyway, lets hope or a win, a good performance and no injuries

In the Japan game, Ireland scored three tries with Crowley on the field and three tries with Prendergast on the field.

It was the same again for the Australia game. How are people coming to the conclusion that he is a far better player offensively.

Lets look at those tries for the Aus game as it was most recent (the Japan game doesn't really do Crowley any favours anyway, we were noticeably better in the second half)

Aus game tries:

Try 1: Try originates from a quick tap penalty in their 22, SP shows good hands to give the assist to the assist

Try 2: We get our territory via SP pumping the ball into their territory off a free kick, SP gives direct assist for the try

Try 3: SP plays the crossfield kick to TOB before Hansen finishes

Try 3.5 (disallowed from a previous knock-on): SP plays an outstanding kick-pass out to TOB who can't not score

DG1: SP hits a nice DG to get the gap out to 8 points

———————

Try 4: Close in try through the forwards, field position comes from a good Crowley up-and-under, forwards do the rest of the work

Try 5: Lineout in their 22, go through a phase or two, Crowley doesn't touch the ball

Try 6: JGP crossfield kick to Henshaw creates the score, Crowley feeds the ball to JGP after ball being knocked-on by Sua'ali'i in the tackle. Does well to keep play going.

You can draw your own conclusions.

SP shows good hands to give the assist to the assist

Why mention this but fail to mention Crowley's out the back pass to jpg for the 6th try. It really weakens the whole point showing very clear bias.

The two players have got more or less equal minutes in the autumn which makes sense. They've both played ok. Crowley shown good attack and kicked well off the tee. Prendergast seems to be at least stepping up in defence more. So both players had work ons, and seem to be improving and are both getting minutes to show the improvement. It seems like good planning 2 years out from a world cup.

Yeah fair point, I will edit the post. The answer is I missed that pass.

the debate the the Irish media relentlessly bring up to fill their airtime / podcasts and paper.

The media will talk about whatever people want to hear; judging by the amount of discussion the 10 jersey gets on this board, the fans are pretty relentless too.

I think it's fair to say that Crowley got the bum deal by playing against NZ while Prendergast got Australia, but such is life. Either way, we're going to find out a lot more about Prendergast on Saturday (if he is in fact picked) and that's all we should be focusing on right now. It doesn't matter if we lose, so long as we learn something from it.

If we are competitive, see a reasonable display from the 10, maintain a functional lineout and if Hansen can pass a tougher test at FB, I'll call that a win regardless of the actual result.