Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

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tour, where he was playing great rugby (he played 4 games, scored 3 tries and would have been the test 13 if he hadn't withdrawn himself with injury).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

He may well be getting lumped in with the others
But he is 2026 Ringrose not 2020 Ringrose. He is in the autumn of his career no doubt.

i agree the squad is changing but disagree that it is progressing.

Looking at the 6N squad I don’t think anymore than 20 of they are at a competitive level for the business end of the RWC.

I think we arw very much in transition this year and could be hitting our bottom in terms of results. What we need to see is the green shoots that things are on the up and that investments in certain players start to pay off. This is not make or break, but moving in the right direction with some new talent is probably the best to hope for.

let’s be honest here on the squad.

The only really change to this squad on form / development that isn’t injury related is the omission of Henderson for Edogbo, and Henderson has not been an impactful international level player for a few seasons now.

the question is how much opportunity Edogbo will be to become one in this 6 nations.

Osbourne has 2 starts against top level opposition.

Not sure where you're getting this from. Osborne has eight starts: South Africa x 2, France, New Zealand, Wales, Japan, Georgia and Fiji, and bench appearances against Argentina and NZ.

Osborne is exactly what people here claim to want. When Keenan got injured for the SA tour, a 'conservative' coach could have picked Frawley or JOB at full-back, and famously, people here were up in arms that Mike Haley didn't get the nod. Farrell saw something in a guy with zero caps who'd played most of his club rugby in the centre and threw him in, he got hammered for it here, but it worked out great.

Tommy O'Brien has six caps, all of which have come in the last six tests. I'm not sure Farrell could have done much else to accelerate him into the team given his injury profile prior to last year.

There's two players who've come from a long way back and absolutely will be options at the RWC. At this remove from the last RWC, four of the 23 who lined out against NZ in the QF had not even been capped. There is no panic.

Again, people only want to focus on who hasn't been cast aside rather than look at who actually is coming through.

And at some point, people just have to accept that a lot of our wider group simply isn't good enough for top-tier rugby and no amount of games will change that.

What's happening at 10?

Had that debate been settled?