Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

That’s not what that scrum stat shows - it just shows if a team retained the ball on its own put in. For example - the same stat shows Ireland as 4 from 4 and 100% from last Saturday’s game.

Munster’s scrum gave away at least two penalties early in that game, something covered in match recaps of the game.

In any event - Loughman was hauled ashore after 51 mins, and it was almost a year and a half ago. What’s your response to Porter winning multiple scrum penalties in a final as recently as June?!

How big a training squad do you want?

We had 34 players in the Ireland squad for the November series, and a further 28 players in the Ireland A squad. If you take it we can c. 160 pro players in the country, 38% of them were in a rep squad this November alone.

I remember watching that match back a couple of times at the time, as it was such a big win, and my own recollection is that the scrum held up manfully that day tbh. Curious what the match recaps said, as obviously in general, there was much praise for Munster iirc.

Presumably shootermacg's point is that in those stats, Bulls also lost 2 (the same stat shows them as winning 6 from 8) which, you'd imagine, means Munster won those?

As an aside "Loughman was hauled ashore after 51 mins", seemingly implying that the time he was subbed indicates a poor performance, is obviously flawed.

I know Porter routinely goes 65, 70+ minutes, but it's not at all atypical for front-row forwards to be subbed off early into the 2nd half. Case in point? Didn't Venter and Thomas du Toit both come off very early on Saturday?

I can't say I remember in detail what Loughman's scrum performance was like that day, but it doesn't at all follow that just because he was subbed / "hauled ashore" on 51 minutes that he was poor, either in the scrum or indeed in general.

That's not thinking at all actually. You're deferring any thinking to Andy Farrell. That's different to thinking.

The royal "we"? I've given examples earlier, but you might have to do some reading.

No there really isn't even anyone close. Rassie was playing the meta before Andy even knew the rules had changed.

Michael Milne is an awful scrummager. It's why he was leapfrogged by Boyle at Leinster last season and why he could never break into the Leinster or Ireland set up with regularity, despite being at the perfect age point for it.

He's significantly worse than Porter in that regard and not someone I ever want to see start a serious test game for Ireland.

Doing what? Your initial post was about squad sizes. South Africa's autumn squad was 36 players, ours was 34 players.

I believe that Milne was injured when Boyle got a call. I also believe Lee Baron was injured when Gus got a call. But I'm no expert on Leinster props.

Yeah, my problems with Milne clearly only started once he signed for Munster in, checks notes, May 2024. This wasn't a provincial pissing match. Why are you trying to spin it that way?

You can check previous Leinster threads for discussion on Milne and how he could be developed into a better all round player. For years we've been talking about his weakness in the scrum and it still hasn't been resolved. The search function here isn't great, but dig far back enough and you'll see a lot of criticism of his poor scrummaging.

Here's one here discussing Milne's move to Munster.

I'd have Bishti and Niall Smyth as far better prospects than Mullan currently, Bishti more that likely too young, Niall Smyth is a bit of a freak so its certainly possible but he needs to prove he can remain injury free for long enough to get Leinster minutes.

There are no detailed match recaps to be found, from the cursory look I had.

Those posts though were posted literally in the middle of the game in question, and no one challenged the view put forward either.

Once again here - the OP posted up about how Loughman has done "really well" against Wilco Louw, as some sort of argument that he should be selected to start at LHP for Ireland, and he (and you fwiw) have refused to engage repeatedly with the fact that Andrew Porter won multiple penalties off Wilco Louw as recently as June.

Ireland were beaten up all over the field against South Africa. The scrums did not go well and porter is getting the full blame but porter was not doing anything on purpose.
James Ryan with his 20 minute red card, Crowley and prendergast with their yellows, that’s 40 minutes down men from real brain dead decisions.
and given the pressure we were under at scrum there was some shocking silly mistakes that lead to even more scrums.

For me it’s all about the coaches, lineout and scrum are not in good, strength in depth is not really being developed and Farrells decisions do not make sense.
For examples, as a Munster man I am delighted Farrell got game time but with the Irish cap on it makes no sense at his age, Casey did not get enough game time, furlong played too much game time.

I am on record previously saying the coaching ticket is stale and I think it is.
You can argue the players are not there and that’s fine but we have control over the coaches. For me Farrell must make some tough choices now.