Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Jack Crowley with Harry Byrne on bench.

Andy Farrell is not erratic in his decision making and doesn’t take as much lead from the provincials as many would expect. He made a call to back Sam in the last 6N and despite the drop off in form / over exertion he will continue to with that backing I think. Byrne will be the 3rd option though and all 3 will get game time as it’s still quite a journey to RWC27 with multiple scenarios yet to play out in URC/ Europe for each of these players

The form of provincial weighs heavenly on selection. The best team in the league for the past decade has been leinster and that is reflected in selection to date.

Farrell is in the game of winning - not loyalty. If Sam is not performing and ireland are not winning, he most certainly will be dropped.

Clearly Farrell sees loyalty as an important component of building team spirit and its a big part of his management style. The retirement stuff with POM, Murray and Healy was a highly choreographed example of it, there are numerous others. It's not necessarily a bad thing and he must see the value in it.

Tom farrell deserved his shot no doubt. Similarly to mcclockey had to bide his time. Needs to keep performing, hasn't been exceptional over the last number of weeks though

Any time I've seen soroka he was average. Not the quickest and was anonymous against ulster in he first half. Reminds me of Dominic Ryan.

80% win percentage in both six nations is not bad in fairness.

Easy to knock from the ditch, he picked Ringrose over Farrell. I think he is entitled to do so on form. We have punched well above our weight with him as coach. Who would you make the coach if you are so unhappy with him ?

Disagree. I think there's heavy bias towards the tried and trusted players over the form players. If Henshaw suddenly started playing as well as he currently plays, he wouldn't get within an ass' roar of the squad, let alone the team. But he's in the squad regardless of how well he's playing.

I think Farrell only got called to the squad because of public opinion in the weeks preceeding it. He had one average performance and he'll settle onto the Nick Timony role of playing a game against a second tier team for a year or 2 and be phased out. Meanwhile Henshaw is continually included while putting in average performances.

I think Farrell has been brilliant for Ireland. But now I think he's entered a phase where he's picking his favourites rather than picking the team to win games. I think he believes his favourites are most likely to win rather than the most in-form players.

We'll see how it works out.

'And there will always be an asterisk beside the entry of any coach who can't get us past a 1/4 in the world cup'

Who decided about this asterisk? Was it a committee meeting? A peer review? A fans poll? I must have missed this news can you enlighten me. Thanks.

He either believes loyalty is important in team building or he has a more transactional approach where results are everything, Farrell is very much the former

You have this backwards. He’s all about results and that manifests itself in a stable team that he believes can win, but this gets interpreted as excessive loyalty.

The loyalty argument never stands up to scrutiny because it’s so selective. Farrell was loyal to James Ryan until McCarthy came along, to Murray until JGP came along. He’s loyal to everyone until there’s someone better.

Everyone is bizarrely fixated on Henshaw which completely overlooks the point that McCloskey was picked ahead of both him and Aki in the recent AIs. Farrell was loyal to them until he wasn’t, but it’s completely ignored.

We have a small playing pool and we’re one of the top rugby teams in the world. The harsh truth is that the vast majority of players at the provinces simply aren’t good enough for Ireland. The gap between the URC and top level tests is a chasm.

no matter who is picked from 9 to 15 unless Ireland can fix the issues at set piece we are going no where.
I don’t think it is fair to just blame certain players.

For me it’s a coaching issue, across the board including Farrell.
Farrell could do with some new coaches who will stand up to him and Tell him some home truths.