Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I doubt it. It's very unusual to plan for a prop to play over 70 mins per game. It's not something coaches do by choice. It made sense for Healy because he was too old to do much around the pitch except set piece. Boyle could move around the pitch and could do the job in the set piece.

I think it they played Boyle earlier, they would have realised he was able to do the normal sub role and play 20 minutes rather than 5 minutes at the end.

Boyle literally got nine minutes against Wales. In the URC final, three months later, he got five. Porter stays on because he has a massive engine, not because Healy was old and if Boyle was as good as he’s now being made out to be, he kept it to himself.

But this is utterly irrelevant. Boyle got two caps in the 6N, it’s simply not credible to say that if he’d had another 15 minutes against France then everything would be different. He’d still have been behind McCarthy in the Autumn. And since he’s out injured anyway, nothing we could have done last year would have made a blind bit of difference for this year.

There is literally nothing to do except see how Milne, Loughman, Bohan and maybe TOT or Bealham get on and hope for the best

he was also a number 8 the whole way through his career until he went into the 7’s programme.

he scored some fantastic tries for Ballynahinch.

This competition is funny. If somehow we get this first win we will be hands down the favourites for the tournament. Lose as expected and they have an obituary for the team in the paper. Of course neither is true, it's just one game.

Let’s take a simpler line of work, the Olympic 100m. Apparently, in the past ten competitions the average age of champions was 24 and Usain Bolt set his record at 22. Obviously, speed is just one requirement of a winger but it does tend to peak fairly early in adult life.

That disallowed try by Tector was exciting. It’s great to see an out-half do that.

There's a decent chance that Bryne, Prendergast and Crowley will all be in the matchday 23 though.

Could see a world where 10 is Prendergast 22 is Byrne and 23 is Crowley in a 5/3 split. Would be left field alright but not quite “not a hope”.

”Will be” is too strong given we could just as easily go 6-2.

I think you probably have to start Ryan +1, just for lineout here.

I reckon it’ll be Ryan and McCarthy, with Beirne at 6 and Edogbo on the bench.

We got stung vs SA with no 2nd row on the bench, and ostensibly Baird covering lock, but I don’t see Farrell making that mistake again vs heavyweight packs.

I’m just making the point that “ZERO chance” and “will be” are far too assured.

FWIW, I think there’s an outside chance Crowley starts at 15 here.