Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Furlong is back in full training as well. We'll need him to get at least 30 minutes against Italy if we want him to be ready for England the week after.

ireland are going through a crisi of identity really. Are we to continue with a poor kick chase strategy (no speed, no physicality) or do we return to multi phase style against a pack which is willing to tackle itself to death?

Very much this. It's hard to say what we're good at, at the moment. Either offensively or defensively.

I think they should just pick Harry Byrne .

And dropping Crowley has I believe damaged the confidence of Crowley. At this stage I thing he should tell prendergast that he needs miles on the clock with Leinster and that Crowley will be his 10 for the rest of the season and go with it.

If dropping Crowley damaged his confidence, wouldn't dropping Prendergast have the same effect?

Come on, this is all nonsense. If a player can't handle being dropped and it destroys his game, then he's not cut out for test rugby and we're better off finding that out sooner rather than later. If people really think Crowley really went to pieces after being dropped (which I don't believe for a second), people might think this is a defence but it's actually the most damning criticism of him that anyone could muster.

nobody is saying JC needs to be mollycoddled, just that maybe dropping a player who was playing quite well at the time (and had just put in a very good performance v. Argentina) for someone who was unproven at test level may have had a bad effect. the fact that he barely got any gametime at 10 in last years 6Ns up to the italy game definitely didnt help things too. id also argue that in the long-term it probably hasnt done SP much good either as it was probably too early for him

imo the best thing for everyone involved would have been for JC to have started the 6Ns last year with SP getting some good gametime off the bench at 10

On the evidence of last Thursday, it seems that we're veering much more towards a kicking-loads-kick-early strategy, where running an attack and putting structure on the game is far less important.

Prendergast is still a better kick from hand than Crowley, but that would make it marked less of a reason to selected Prendergast over him, particularly when we see the differences in their defence.

where was the evidence of that before crowley was dropped though? its debatable as to whether there is much evidence of that since then too to be honest but i dont think SPs performance in the Fiji game warranted him starting v Aus, especially seeing as JC played very well against Argentina. I'd argue SPs performance v Aus also didnt exactly warrant him being the de facto 10 for the 6Ns, seeing as alot of the talk was how Ireland's attack improved with JC at 10 - not that SP was terrible or anything in that game either.

both are great 10s, both have weaknesses and both are getting an undue amount of flak from various sources - the people saying SP was awful on Thursday are just as wrong as those saying that JC has been 'beyond awful' for munster recently, the reality lies much more in that 'awful' should generally read 'average' or even 'below average'. as i've said before, i think SP becoming the starting 10 too early (imo anyway) will end up having long term negative effects for both JC and him, damaging both their confidence in different ways. whereas if SP had been given more time to get experience from the bench, it would probably have helped them both improve to a point where they are both at a much higher level than they are at today.

its all a bit 'if my grandmother had wheels etc,' i suppose

You can't run a team with a defensive hole in the middle of the field. I don't care whether it's Byrne or Crowley at 10 TBH.

Jalibert didnt cruise by prendergast. The Ireland defence was static because the scrum was under pressure, Jalibert ran onto the ball at pace without breaking stride and stepped back inside.

Players will make mistakes, in this instance it was all about the French scrum giving their backs free reign. Not a lot any player would be able to do in that situation.

I agree it was a very poor performance.

1. He should never have been given a CC when he was.
2. Joe can be given that chance from the bench.
3. Has he? Not in the last 12 months for Ireland has he anyway. Maybe for Leinster but certainly not Ireland.
4. We seemed to cope fine without his bulk when James Ryan replaced him.
5. Very questionable. Giving away needless penalties destroys cohesion.
6. Edogbo not ready for a start, but ready for 20mins off the bench for sure. Same goes for Cormac Izuchukwu. Why not give them the no.19 jersey for a home game vs. Italy. And start Beirne and Ryan as the locks with Conan or Cian Prendergast at 6.

A little harsh with that. Granted Loughman isn't really a long term option but he did his job very well at set piece on Thursday after several years in the international wilderness. He's the fourth choice LH prop and did very well for someone that far down the pecking order. I do agree he was pedestrian enough in open play though.