Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

The criticism of Crowley seems to be coming from people just looking at scorelines and not watching the games.
He's not at the level he was at to start the season but is still playing well imo.

He had a bad kicking day against Castres, it happens. He had a good kicking day the week before against Toulon.
Prendergast missed some kicks against La Rochelle but the difference is that they won.
Munster lost both games so ergo Crowley played poorly…
Talking about him "failing to control" the game against Castres is a bit odd. Most of their tries came from bad moments in defense. You can't hang that on the outhalf.

Good selection and defying the mantra on Andy Farrell being adverse to change. Nice balance of age, experience & hunger to prove. Certainly shows the willingness to probe changes to key positions and continue to work on squad depth. A big (and positive) message by dropping Lowe in favour of a 30 year old in form. Aside: Average age late 20’s at a guess which is on the right side of target

Harry Byrne has very clearly demonstrated better form than Jack Crowley this season

I'd question that, tbh. Certainly early season form, I don't think it's at all clear that Harry demonstrated better form than Crowley, in fact I'd say quite the opposite.

(so this is probably another example of where other factors matter more to Farrell than pure form, but unlikely we'll hear the same level of complaints about it in this instance).

🙄

Stockdale is 29.

Well of course you'd question it, but if you want to actually go and break it down:

Crowley

• Jack Crowley played well at the beginning of the season (September & October) - he had a good 40 mins on Day 1 against Scarlets, was excellent against Cardiff and was arguably the best player on the park in Round 4 against Leinster.
• He was okay to middling during the international window.
• Since then - his performances have taken a marked turn down hill - poor against the Stormers, poor against Leinster in Thomond and really poor against Toulon and Castres.

Byrne

• Harry's first game of the season was a miserable outing as part of a second choice side away to the Stormers, where Leinster lost heavily. He got 20 mins off the bench.
• He was man of the match in his next two outings for Leinster (comprehensive wins over Sharks & Zebre), excellent for Ireland A v Spain in November (kicking 8 from 9).
• He was mixed at best away to the Dragons in late November, but was good in away wins in Europe over Leicester and Bayonne, and was the best out half on the field in Thomond in late December.
• He had a massive late cameo against La Rochelle in Jan - kicking a fairly clutch kick with the last kick of the game.

In summary - Crowley's season started strong, and has decidedly faded since then (his most recent performance was one of the worst of his season), whereas Byrne started very strong (MotM in 2 of his first 3 starts), and has continued to largely deliver good performances over the course of the season.

I don't think there's anything controversial about saying Harry Byrne has shown better form this season than Jack Crowley (or Sam Prendergast fwiw).

Since then - his performances have taken a marked turn down hill - poor against the Stormers, poor against Leinster in Thomond and really poor against Toulon and Castres.

You can state this as fact if you wish, but I absolutely don't agree - particularly with regards the Stormers and Toulon games, where he was good and very good respectively, imo.

Take the Toulon game; Crowley was very good that day, and let's not forget landed a very difficult clutch kick himself on 72 minutes to put Munster in the lead. And but for an absolutely bizzare penalty given against Tom Farrell, that would've been the winning of the game, and the narrative would be completely different. All hingeing on a utterly bizzare ref call.

And therein lies the issue - I think people see results / performances of Munster and conflate that with the performances of Crowley; where a very good performance from Crowley suddenly becomes "really poor" because Munster lost.

and only one of those missed kicks was actually bad (terrible tbh) although there was an early charge from what i remember. the other two missed kicks were from the touchline so not exactly gimmes

JC could definitely do with improvement in terms of goalkicking and he needs to correct his timing since he always seems super close to/ actually gets timed out, but its not as if he is absolutely shocking either

Toulon spent the last few mins of the game camped on Munster's line and earned multiple penalties

Indeed, and Crowley himself played a massive part in holding up the Toulon player over the line right at the death to earn Munster 1 match point, and keep them alive at the time.

But all of this as part for Crowley’s performance in the Toulon game gets forgotten in retrospect because Munster lost the following week

Which then leads to Crowley’s performance in Toulon being called “really poor”

He absolutely wasn’t anything close to “really poor” that day, quite the opposite.

Crowley to me looks at his best when he’s playing in broken play. He looks very dangerous when he’s attacking the line and using his footwork and getting hands free to throw an offload.

He looks more ordinary at the nuts and bolts of putting players into space and kicking (for territory, kick contestables, line kicking and at goal have all been average this season at best-he’s had a few lovely cross kicks over his career and nailed some super drop goals to give him credit).

Theres a touch of Marcus Smith about him although better defensively and not quite as dangerous going forward. He’s a talented player who can create moments of magic but seems to be a great ball player as opposed to a great 10. You could also draw parallels with Joey Carbery in that sense. I’d like to see a bit more of him at 12 as second playmaker. Think it’d amplify his strengths although he’d probably be a bit on the small side to be starting there at international level. Definitely see that as a good option from the bench though to change the picture later on in a game.

By winning 4/5 games just like we did last year. I’d take another 4/5 this year too.

Yeah it's a real head scratcher. Posted our largest ever win in France with him too. Some going for such an ordinary player. If only he was weak defensively or lacked pace or had trouble with discipline. At least then he'd have the backing of the experts on here. Posters with such well informed and educated takes as "Baird is a second row" and "Kleyn has no chance of being called up by South africa".

To be fair, I don't think I am "absolving Crowley of those losses."

I've little disagreement with characterising his performance against, say ,Castres and Leinster as poor, or even really poor. His performances those days certainly contributed towards the loss. (His place kicking in particular).

But absolutely no one is going to convince me his performance vs Toulon contributed to the loss or was "really poor".

That's what I'm talking about. And I think - somewhat occasionally on here - the performance / result of the team gets conflated with the performance of the individual.

That's a much more nuanced point than "absolving Crowley of thoses losses".

(Also, you're putting me in the "pro Crowley camp" but bear in mind, I've said I'd start Prendergast vs France).