Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

We do, as we’ve seen with what Ireland have achieved over the last 3 years.

If James Ryan was anything other than a Leinster player he'd have been cast off years ago. He shouldn't be pulling on an Ireland jersey any time soon if right is right.

Listening to Malcolm Marx he makes a great point, team environment is everything.

Ireland has an environment where mediocrity & excuses are accepted, which has undoubtedly fed into the sloppy, illdiciplined performances we’ve been getting.

Don’t fool yourself, nothing will be done about it either. The only way to solve it is the cut the culprits out which are POC and Fogarty. Otherwise we’ll be having the same conversation come the 6N.

Me too, in a massive way.

I've just read an article with Farrells post game thoughts. We've just had our backsides handed to us by SA and he's talking about how Ireland had a Lions front row and how the scrum "has been" world class. Talking about learnings and lads getting experience etc..…

This team peaked in Oct 23. We lost a QF because we persisted kicking to the corners from penalties with a non functioning line-out. That continued and we somehow managed a 6N win. We did well in SA that summer but we are seeing a trend here in terms of our performance levels. It's not like it's happened overnight. We are on a downward trajectory.

But its beginning to feel like, the coaches and team themselves are immune from many genuine criticism. I am going against the grain here but I think we have print journalists here who do question those involved but it's evident the disdain the Irish management have for those journalists. It's grand spouting "team of us" positivity and drivel when you're playing like you are the best team in the world. Our performances are getting worse.

Any genuine fan knows that, the NZ team beat us in Chicago is the worst they've been in a long time. We had a run out against Japan and won and we beat a poor and exhausted Australian team at home.

I am hoping that the Andy Farrell we see in front of the cameras is very different than the one away from it. If he isn't, then we're in for a tough 2 years ahead.

New coaching setup will be O’Gara, POC, Flannery and Felix. Lancaster will be involved also but will stay as head coach out west.

The following tweet is also interesting, phog:

Iirc, when Ireland played France in the 2023 6 Nations it was World #1 vs #2 in the rankings. But not only that it was the teams with the best discipline, in terms of cards at least etc.

So if I'm reading that correctly, in that time, we've gone from being the team with the best discipline, to the team with the worst.

It's a massive issue now.

Hansen is out with a reoccurrence of the foot injury which caused him to miss the Lion's test matches. This is what comes of playing unfit players. He was reported as being a doubt last Thursday or Friday but managed to come through the Captain's run, albeit with quite a lot of strapping. Now he's out for who knows how long. A ridiculous situation.

Could be wrong here, but I thought the reason he was a doubt was in relation to a finger injury tho?

I'd agree entirely awec, with regards Baird not playing lock.

If you take the 2 heavyweight packs we played against this calendar year (SA and France) it's interesting we had pretty different approaches in terms of our bench.

Vs France, we went 6/2, McCarthy and Beirne starting, with Ryan and Baird on the bench (as well as Conan).

Va SA, we had 2 back-rows on the bench (Prendergast and Conan), with Baird from 6 covering lock.

Neither approach worked particularly well.

It's not just poor coaching tho. It's poor coaching and poor execution by the players.

It's both.

Good summation!

A new younger face needs to be included for the 6 nations squad at the expense of one of our centres. McCloskey, Aki, Henshaw and Farrell are all probably deserving of their involvement but collectively it seems negligent not to prepare for the future. Alternatively add a full back so that we can prioritise 12 for Jamie Osbourne. Cathal Forde, Dan Kelly and Postlewait look like they could be decent options for consideration in the centre at least bring one in for the series. At full back we are a bit thin on the ground around the provinces.

Perhaps the best unintended consequence of the autumn: Mack's emergence as a viable back-up 15 should free up Osbourne to play 12 moving forwards.

Ringrose should remain at 13 for now, but I'm hoping the Wales game in the Six Nations can be used to blood Gavin or Postlethwaite at 13 too.