Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Is the rugby World Cup the only show in town and the four years between just filler.

I don’t think we can say that for all teams.
Not for the 6 nations countries where the tournament actually means something, not for Argentina who are fighting to build themselves into a dominant force. Certainly not for Australia who are chasing a return to their good days.

I think it is fair to say O’Sullivan kidney Schmidt and Farrell have all made mistakes at World Cup time. But they also achieved a lot great things and Ireland have been very successful over the last 25 years.

Irish rugby improved even to a new level in the last 5 years but we still have required some imports like Aki, Hansen and park to make the leap and that’s the rub. Rugby Is more popular then it ever was but still it is far behind other sports in popularity with GAA no 1 by a distance in many parts of the country. For Irish rugby to build the depth required to consistently challenge for World Cups the game has to grow more deeply into rural Ireland and that is the challenge the IRFU face, if it goes after the GAA heartlands the GAA will have no problem punching back regards access to Croke park and other facilities.

All in all, when you look at the health of the four provinces and the international team and factor in the low overall playing numbers , the population of the island and the very tight budget required to run rugby teams especially top level academy programmes, we are punching well above our weight.

Ireland’s consistency at the top table was remarkable when you think about it.

Fun fact. France have never won the RWC and have not won a knockout match since the 2011 final.

Is the current French team and coach considered more of a success because a load of retired players and a coach widely regarded as a disaster won two matches, 14 years ago?

You can take RWCs into consideration but dismissing Farrell's many achievements because we lost to NZ by a single score in one match is absolutely bananas.

I'm not debating the wider point about which is the greater achievement, but winning a RWC QF was an explicit, quantifiable measure of success in the report that came out of our failure at the RWC 2019 RWC.

That was a target, that was a parameter set by the IRFU itself. It's not just a wooly fans' notion.

The Joe era completely redefined what success meant in Irish rugby and Farrell has continued on in the same vein.

That people can look at Farrell’s record and question it is a testament to how successful he has been, he and Joe have totally changed perspectives and expectations for Irish rugby fans.

Two questions around the midfield.

Is Osborne better at 12 or 15?

What's Bundee's contract situation?

13

The emergence of Zach Ward and JJ Kenny really shines a light for me on how utterly stupid a decision it was to get rid of the 7s programme.

It smacked to me of Humphreys trying to put his own stamp on things, and doing away with something that was a big pet project of his predecessor.

It’s highly unlikely guys like Kenny, Ward, Izuchukwu, Andrew Smith etc have pro contracts right now if not for the 7s programme, and in Ward and Kenny we’ve found two prototypical guys who have what we ostensibly lack: size, power and speed.

I wasn’t a huge fan of 7s as a product to watch in and of itself, but believe it was a valuable player production pathway.

The rumoured annual savings from scrapping 7s are €500k, which seems a relatively immaterial saving in the context of the scale of the IRFUs finances. The IRFU keep dropping a million plus every time they can get their hands on a house in Havelock Square (and I get why they’re doing this obviously) but don’t have the money apparently for actual valuable rugby activities.

I'm not debating aims and goals in reports. I'm saying the idea of an asterisk on a coaches record because he didn't win one knockout game is absurd. The coaches cannon of work is far more measurable

The poster I was replying to was stating Farrell will always have an asterisk because he didn't get Ireland past a quarter final. Which says more about the poster than Farrell IMHO.