Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Bit of a tautology there. How do you know when a player has done enough to win the jersey from another player? When that second player wins the jersey.

Some here have argued that any combination of Kenny, Stockdale or Ward has done enough to win the jersey, or reef it off Lowe or whatever way you want to put it, by being the best left wing on the island. Or at least consistently putting in the best performances at left wing on the island.

I suppose we have to wait and see who starts.

When the upstart is good enough farrell had never shyed away from dropping the incumbent.

This, a million times over, and it is always ignored.

Rob Kearney retired 7 years ago, and never played for Farrell as his head coach. The only real similarity between him and Lowe is that discontented people on the internet think he should be dropped while no one whose job it is to pick winning rugby teams agrees.

At some point, someone will come along and displace Lowe, just like Lowe and Hansen displaced their predecessors. If that happens between now and the RWC, great, and if it doesn't, it doesn't.

And we need to compare like with like here. The URC is a million miles away from test level, and winger in particular is a position where it's easy to catch the eye against lower level opposition and also very easy to be exposed at higher levels.

Yeah, fair.

Yeah, it should - but alarm bells with whom?

Like, the one consistent theme throughout Farrell's tenure has been fans tearing their hair out asking "what more can Player X do??", based on what we've seen in matches, or conversely, "how is Player Y still getting picked?".

It's been a recurring theme that Farrell doesn't pick his team based on what players do for other teams, he picks based on what he sees himself. As long as Lowe - or Henshaw, Ringrose, whoever - is doing the business for him, he won't panic.

How do the Irish hookers rate as scrummagers? Spotlight usually falls on props, even on locks but no one seems to mention a hookers impact.

Has Sheahan put on a few kgs?

James Tracy commented before in the context of the Leinster hookers (who he would have trained alongside), and said Ronan Kelleher was the strongest scrummager of that bunch; which stands to reason. He's a bit shorter and squatter than Sheehan, and seems very powerful. Believe Rob Herring is also a very powerful scrummaging hooker.

Gus McCarthy doesn't strike me as an especially powerful scrummager, and would say the same for the likes of Tom Stewart, Lee Barron & Diarmuid Barron.

With both Ulster and Munster not qualifying for the last 16 of the Heineken we need a dose of reality, our expectations should be realistic. Very few Irish players made teams of the week or created headlines. The URC performances are not close to test level. Andy Farrell will not pick players to go to Paris because they looked good in a few URC games. He will stick with guys who he trusts away to France especially given our front row issues. France will go after the scrum, they smell blood.

Is the Champions Cup group stage a great barometer these days? In fairness the Leinster La Rochelle match was a proper game, so the Leinster players who played well there should be in credit. But a lot of the pool stage games are half baked now which saddens me greatly.

Ok, but if we focus on Lowe, it's fairly obvious he is not doing the business

Again, 'fairly obvious' is entirely subjective.

He was crap in the AIs and his limitations were on full display.

I don't think he was crap tbh. A few wayward kicks aside, which he has always been prone to, I thought he had a decent series. Brainfarts are not a recent development for him, they're part of the reason he's been so good.

Lowe is rapidly running out of credit in the bank.

With Farrell? I'm not so sure tbh. But look, Ward and Kenny will get a run-out next week, Stockdale probably won't be needed at FB so he's an option for left wing in Paris. If Lowe is so bad and the alternatives are so good, his days are numbered.