Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

MOD EDIT

Going with your argument, yeah, as had Blade played last years 6N (and been dropped subsequently) then Doak would have been brought in one campaign earlier back in November rather than now for the 6N. If it turns out he is #3 then he'd have already played some minutes and would be headed into his second campaign now. Same goes alll down the line if we are talking about who is #3 (or 2 ultimately) the we get to the WC.

We have 10 6N matches, at least 6 Summer tests (if we go far in the comp we have more), and 4 November internationals without counting a match against Fiji. That's 20 tests against top tier opponents without counting any warm up matches for the WC itself. That is an awful lot of minutes to develop players, and it involves 5 or 6 extensive training camps. No excuses.

Also bizarre the amount of injured players named. I count 6 players currently injured in the squad

Wales, Italy and Fiji are not Top tier nations, only one of them are ranked in the top 8 in the world - ie the RWC QF level.

Players need at least a few games against the top nations in the world if you have any hope of them being effective against them in a RWC.

Belief and confidence are literally synonyms for faith.

I don’t think it’s exclusively the fault of the guy calling it, but I think at this point he’s the largest part of the problem. James Ryan is no better at it though unfortunately, so the issue will likely persist for a while.

you don’t think it’s the caller fault exclusively but you also think:

“The only change you make to that pack is bringing in Beirne and letting him call the lineouts, and it goes to pieces”

make up your mind.

I also think that the game has moved on - to my eyes at least its escalated into increased value on athleticism (power or pace or both) rather than fitness/ball-skills - which is actually where the Farrell 2022/23 team was excellent. In that regard the ageing of the team is more exaggerated than mere stamina to my mind

I think it could very well be part of the problem. But to lay the blame almost exclusively on Beirne is way too simplistic.

To your credit, you've rowed back a bit from that position this morning. But that was the clear implication from some of your posts yesterday.

Two more points:

1:

Ireland's lineout frailties have been discussed ad nauseum on here countless times, to the extent that multiple people on numerous occasions have called for POC's head.

Correct. And I think we've identified another (and obvious) part of the problem, rather than Beirne, which you completely omitted from your earlier conclusion.

2:

You don't have to take my word for it though, here's the guy himself talking about a game where the lineout struggled…

Do you think I can't produce quotes from other players saying that they need to improve at the lineout, that the fault is on them, and even some saying they won't hear of any criticism of POC?

If you're going to accept what Beirne says, then it seems to me you also have to accept what other players say too.

Agree with all of this.

For example, Ryan Baird fluffed his lines for the first lineout of the game for 2 of the AI games. (It was later suggested they couldn't hear the calls cos of the crowd noise).

Laying mistakes like that, that contribute to the poor lineout results, at the feet of Beirne is just way too simplistic.

It's kind of remarkable though how regularly it happens at international level (and for Munster), when you put largely the same group of players together on another team and they've the best lineout in Europe this season.

Players are always going to defend their coaches; and players are always generally (especially in the cliched and media trained world of Irish pro rugby) going to talk about improvements and work ons etc; that quote from Beirne isn't as generalised as that. It's a really specific quote that is hugely pertinent to the point I'm making; it's him saying that the reason Munster's lineout faltered really badly for a specific period in that game was down to errors he made on the call, a number of times.

As I've said, I'm obviously not calling for him to be dropped or anything stupid like that. He's an incredible player, one of the best forwards Irish rugby has ever produced. There are guys out there who look like they might call a lineout better than him (potentially Iain Henderson, Ryan Baird, maybe Tom Ahern) but they aren't necessarily a lock for their place on the team (though Baird was getting there before injury), so it's hard to hand it over to any of them either. I don't think James Ryan is necessarily any improvement either on Beirne.

But i 100% think there's something in this, and think it's a way more substantial part of our lineout failings than people here are willing to give credence to.

I'm not exclusively blaming Beirne, and I'm not saying every single lost lineout either is because there's a bad call. I specifically remember a situation in the Japan game where Tom Clarkson messed up the call and missed a lift, and that's obviously on him.

But, to me, there has been very little scrutiny or discussion of the role of the line out calling in assessing Ireland's lineout frailties (certainly by comparison to the flak POC has received), and I think it's a hugely material part of a faltering lineout.

There is definitely enough there when you assess the relative performances of the Leinster, Munster & Ireland lineouts to ask serious questions about this.

So the Ireland lineout works when they wear blue but not when they wear green and the issue is Beirne.

Gotcha.

I'm saying there is enough statistical evidence to say the issue isn't the quality of the throwing, or the lifting or the jumping, as the very same players largely demonstrate no material issues with these aspects when playing for Leinster.

When we consistently struggle then, yeah, the quality of the opposition at international level is a bit of a factor, but I think the largest factor is either with the guy generally coaching the lineout or the guy calling it, or both. There has been lots of scrutiny and criticism of the former there, but virtually none of the latter.