Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Anything to back this up?

Let's go through the player ratings according to various sources in each of the games:

New Zealand:

RTE: 7/10

Irish Times: 6/10

Irish Independent: 6/10

Irish Examiner: 8/10

Australia:

RTE: 8/10

Irish Times: 7/10

Irish Independent: 7/10

Irish Examiner: 6.5/10

South Africa:

RTE: 7/10

Irish Times: 7/10

Irish Independent: 6/10

Irish Examiner: 5.5/10

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I left the links in there so you can read them yourself. Just under 7/10 for the series and consistently in the top 3 or 4 in each report for the most part.

Look at all the players in each of those match reports consistently below him, and tell me that James Lowe is the issue and that his form is so bad that he shouldn't 'be within a sniff of an Irish cap'.

The point in all of this is that, even if you still think Lowe is our best left wing, there’s no way the answer to question 2 is so equivocal that people disagreeing with your are “pretending otherwise”.

So if you’re not arguing for Stockdale then who? We can’t seriously be going with the “well anyone would be better” line?

If we had someone of the calibre of Hansen or Keenan to play 11 then things would be different, but we don’t. We can pretend Stockdale playing like a drain against tier 2 opposition doesn’t matter, but it does.

Stockdale had a good game in a different position on Friday so if we’re arguing for a change at 11 I’m not sure it helped. Jack Conan outplayed Neil Doak, should we move him to scrum half?

Not specifically. (Although I have never seen anyone get the hate and abuse Stockdale did when his form started to slip.)

Baloucoune was no more than alright on Friday but the hysterical posts shrieking that he had been "abysmal"were quite telling. It depends on how much threat there is to the competing player from some posters' own provinces.

Firstly, I'm not just talking about this forum. There was an astonishing hate online.

And go and look at some of the comments on the Japan game thread - where he wasn't great but certainly didn't deserve what he was getting.

No-one's saying players don't get abuse from, and short-changed by, online "supporters" but the grief Stockdale git five years ago was astonishing.

Poor Larmour just can't stay fit. He's absolutely great to watch but I feel like his feet are one step ahead of his brain at times. He's worth a look if he can get a consistent run of quality games though (same as anyone)

That's not true. Hansen was horribly out of form in the first half of last season. He wasn't even the best winger in Connacht. He improved as the season went on and by the end he was in good form and a Lion. But the first few months, he was crap.

Lowe has always been relatively slow for a winger but that wasn’t a massive issue a few years ago when he was genuinely excellent and brought a lot to the table that made up for his lack of pace. The issue now is he’s just not very good anymore.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSk9qNEkqUU/?igsh=MXN4YTNhbWc4MGgzNQ==

There's a comment on the Japan thread that includes "Stockdale what a loser". No-one else comments on it. That's the level of critical analysis of his play that is acceptable - that's not the majority of it, but at this stage comments like that are unremarkable.

To be fair syd, we also have a poster arguing if you don't agree Lowe is the best option, you're "pretending", with the added suggestion that Stockdale playing well at 15 in a conversation about him vs Lowe means nothing because it's a different position, and is the equivalent of Conan playing well to replace Doak….

It should be possible to have a difference of opinion without being met with the above, imo.