Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

In my defence, you said that Farrell's tenure could not 'gloss over' the RWC result. "Glossing over" means something superficial is masking something much more important and substantial.

I personally don't think back-to-back 6N championships, 18 successive test wins, a prolonged and deserved reign as #1 in the world, a first ever win in NZ and a series win in NZ, a drawn series in South Africa, beating SA at the RWC and a victorious Lions series are gloss at all, I think it's a phenomenal set of achievements that any coach would be immensely proud of.

A better run in the RWC would have been the icing on top of a very successful cake in my opinion, and losing to NZ by a single score in one match is only a part of the overall consideration of whether he's been a success or not.

postlewaithe-Osbourne

Strongly agreed - he's struggled to break into Terenure's AIL side this year, never mind coming anywhere close in the medium term to the Irish 12 jersey.

He's turned 22 and hasn't gotten a minute so far for Connacht - the only other starter from that U20s RWC Final side who hasn't yet made his senior debut for his province is James Nicholson.

Some of the others have Ireland caps (Paddy McCarthy - 4, Gus McCarthy - 7, Sam Prendergast - 13 and Hugh Gavin - 1), and lots of players have substantial minutes at a provincial level (Diarmuid Mangan - 24 games, 1,160 mins, James McNabney - 20 games, 1,325 mins, Ruadhan Quinn - 23 games, 618 mins, Fintan Gunne - 24 games, 621 mins, Andrew Osborne - 17 games, 916 mins and Brian Gleeson - 25 games, 635 mins). There's a strong argument McNabney and Gleeson might well have been internationally capped too but for injuries.

There's a strong argument John Devine's development has been one of the most disappointing of that good U20s team in reality.

I am familiar with Farrell's results, as I think every poster here is. The WC hodoo is a real thing in Irish rugby and as some reminded us above breaking through the 1/4 is a high level must have in the IRFU plans, not one to be 'glossed over'. Joe, Farrell and everyone else has failed to achieve it. Lots of posters don't think it's important, fair enough. But I guarantee you that Farrell and his employers think it's important.

He probably emerged at the worst time and worst position of any Connacht player ever, in another era he would have debuted straight out of school. It's a tough one - on the one hand he's too talented for a team of our resources to not utilise, on the other he's not better now than about 4 players ahead of him and perhaps not a bigger long term prospect than Seán Walsh.

Like a lot of talented footballers who lack a bit of athleticism at the top level (Lucas Berti, Ethan McIlroy, Mike Lowry, Rob Lyttle, Chris Cosgrave are a few others off the top of my head), imo he should have been moved to 9 early enough to learn the position.

I feel like with Lowry. If you’re going to be 5’7 and <80kg and make it at international level in any position other than scrum half, you need to be Shane Williams/Cheslin Kolbe levels of outstanding. And while he’s a very good player, he just isn’t that.

Whatever about some of the guys (Keenan, Baloucoune etc), I think there is a very clear argument that Zac Ward and JJ Kenny wouldn't be playing pro rugby if not for 7s. Both had been overlooked by the provincial academies, and were only still in the system at all because of 7s.

The language used was all about savings, and unquestionably it's a factor (allied with the fact that the 7s doesn't generate any money in and of itself), but the purported savings (€500k per season) are not that material in the context of the scale of the IRFU's finances.

It was highly associated with Nucifora - he was described as the driving force behind it (he pretty much immediately launched a pro 7s programme in Scotland as soon as he took over the performance director role there too), and does look to me as a way for Humphreys to put his own stamp on his new role.

Financial backers of the 7s programme (David Barry) spoke out saying they weren't even consulted or given a heads up before the announcement was made to cut it, so it doesn't look like they even made attempts to see could they procure more funding to further close that €500k gap. This is a direct quote from him, who, once again, is a guy who provided substantial funding to the 7s programme over the past decade:

"It’s hard to accept that this decision was taken solely on financial grounds as I cannot see any tangible effort expended during the so called consultation period to solve the purported funding challenge. A sad demise to a wonderful programme!".

It's very widely reported that that is the annual saving to the IRFU, including in articles citing IRFU sources. Given the blowback they've gotten for this, if the savings were more substantial than that then I feel they'd be very quick to get that messaging out there.

As per the comment I posted earlier from the guy who had provided some funding support to the programme for years, it doesn't look like they went to great lengths to see if they could further close that funding gap either (given they didn't even pick up the phone to that benefactor).