Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

If they moved the lineout calling away from Tadhg Beirne to Fineen Wycherley then that does the complete opposite of "disproves" the point I'm trying to make, it could equally be the case that Fineen Wycherley is bad at this, but it fairly comprehensively says they don't think Beirne is good at it.

I'm not overly critical or negative of Beirne either - as I've said elsewhere on this thread, he's been an incredible player for Ireland. I think he's one of a number of guys who is showing clear fatigue from the Lions, which is probably exacerbated by some other factors (he just turned 34, he has a new small baby at home). I absolutely wouldn't suggest he should be dropped from the Irish starting team either.

The lineout has many inputs to success, the caller, the jumpers, the lifters and the thrower.

People keep making this same point - and the bulk of those are technical skills - jumping, lifting, throwing. Calling is a mental skill.

We absolutely know all of these players are very capable of consistently executing these technical skills, because we see them do it time and time again.

There is a far bigger question mark around Beirne's capabilities on the mental skill of calling a lineout effectively, especially if, as you say, Munster have moved that responsibility away from him too recently.

A complete aside, but iirc Mick Galwey credited John Hayes for extending his rugby playing career because of this.

I think you’d have to say there’s obviously an issue with the system. That may be getting exacerbated by the caller. The majority of the players have shown they can be part of a successful lineout.

I agree with this, Beirne shouldn't be calling the lineout if it's contributing to the problems. I have a feeling thought that changing the caller may not make much difference.

You're correct, I had thought it was POC but it was in fact Gaillimh.

My point being that a successful lineout has many moving parts. I don't think the current woes should be pinned on any individual.

The Irish lineout struggles go back to when POM was still around calling the lineouts - blaming Beirne seems massively simplistic. The lineout has been up and down for a couple years at this point.

Remains to be seen how we get on this 6N

In the first half, Japan contested exactly 1 lineout. We had a 57% completion at half-time.

At that point, it's way more an execution issue than a calling issue, imo.

france by 20 so.

we don’t disagree about much here, honestly. IIRC my original response was to say we had a lot more than 10 tests to go before the WC, and time enough to prepare a squad. Selections for 6N don’t indicate that Farrell is worried in the way a lot of us are. I guess I feel we have real problems at FR, SH and in the centres. There are alternatives available if he develops them. As I said earlier, my biggest worry is playing style. Other than Keenan and maybe Hansen I’m not convinced we have any kind of aerial game to deal with how the game is being played by the likes of SA and England.

Well he's barely played for Leinster all season, but he scored a try in Europe against Quins back in December (his last game before last weekend).

His form hasn't been good since the Lions tour, where he was playing great rugby (he played 4 games, scored 3 tries and would have been the test 13 if he hadn't withdrawn himself with injury).

Probably his second last game when he scored a try against Quins in December and had another line break. Not sure if he had any line breaks against Bayonne but he had a hell of a lot of carries so I can only definitely say his second last game was his last line break.

Well if you really want to know he has 2 in the Champions Cup and none in the URC but he has only played 219 minutes of rugby this season.

His competition for the 13 jersey being Tom Farrell and James Hume have 4 and 6 respectively but that is across 655 and 758 minutes. So on a per minute basis as a 13 Garry has the best line break stats.

He was also phenomenal in the Lions series until he got his HIA.

Ringrose seems to get lumped in with Aki and Henshaw as being over the hill. His demise is greatly over blown. He is far and away the best 13 in Ireland.

The idea that ppls problems with the pace of squad development is to do with underlying ‘feelings’ about Farrell is based on just as little as any made up assumptions about the coach. Ireland have been on a downward trajectory since the WC. Chicago was emblematic of it and the following games in Nov did little to persuade anyone that Chicago was a hiccup. There are real problems in the squad and in the game plan!