Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

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.

fair enough, I like rugby but don’t enough about it to make any statements like I do.
My feeling is for a good years excluding Leinster the provinces are not producing enough talent to keep the international team going at the high level.

This is not me trying to cause a row and I accept that’s not Leinsters fault and have no idea really who is to blame , I assume the provinces themselves.

But if it’s a case that Leinster are producing all the talent and it’s being shipped to the other provinces I think that will cause serious problems in the long term for Irish rugby.

Neither have I.

At the game last night and Tector was very good. He is a developing young player. Don't be too quick to write him off. Very intelligent running for the intercept try. He can also place kick and play out half. Some people write off young players too soon for making the odd mistake, that is part of the learning curve, it's how you improve.

TBF I don’t think Syd was writing him off, just saying he’s done nothing yet to warrant starting matches at 12 for Ireland.

I can’t believe that even you are arguing that we should have picked Charlie Tector to start for Ireland. I simply don’t believe that you believe this.

Was Tom Farrell having his first start at 13 in that Japan game? Would it be wise starting a youngster at 12? Think that Japan game was a must win from a seedings point of view too.

what do people think the primary centre partnership will be in three years time?