Sexton's role is mentoring the irish out halves.
I think it would be weird if in actual fact Sexton believed Crowley is the man to lead Ireland, but Farrell had been selecting Sam all this time.
Would you not agree?
We need 2 or 3 international 10’s going into the next World Cup so it’s not an either or, it’s both + some . Only 17 pre RWC tests remaining so the dual approach has to be taken or we end up risking being in the same position as last time with a bench option which isn’t trusted
I think the point is that Sexton is unlikely to be advocating for either one, that's not his job, and Andy Farrell does not strike me as the sort of guy who is easily swayed by whispers in his ear.
Also worth noting that Prendergast's call-ups pre-date Sexton becoming a coach.
It is very convenient for some people to ascribe Prendergast's selection to Sexton being some sort of Rasputin figure in the camp but there's very little to back it up.
Sextins job is to try and improve their abilities. He plays no part in selecting the team.
Well he isn't doing a great job there because both lads have been going backwards the last 12 months.
Since Sexton coming into cap, the kickers have changed their style. They now angle the ball away from the posts instead of aiming it where they want the ball to go, or towards the outside post. This is supposed to allow the kicker open up more of the contact point. Both Sam and Jack have adopted this methodology and their percentages have tanked.
Why aren't they reverting to their previous style which was pretty decent? I don't know.
That's not what posters are discussing.
Or maybe give Rog a ring and ask him to do some sessions with our kickers. dan carter said he was excellent.
On Sexton I did feel at the time and stick by it that it was way to early to bring him into the coaching set up. As he ad just retired and too close to the current players.
You don't think he would be asked his opinion on who is in better form or better suited to play against upcoming opposition?
AF may not be easily swayed but he definitely takes the views of his coaches in to account when selecting the team.
That's fair - I don't know what is happening behind closed doors and certainly who is advocating for which player. It is only an assumption. I would add Farrell doesn't select the team himself, he takes advice from his coaching staff, so if Sexton isn't advising Farrell on the outhalf, Goodman is?
Prendergast was added as a training panelist in the 2024 6nations. He earned his first irish senior call and cap during the autumn series of 2024.
Johny Sexton began his part time role with Ireland in the autumn series 2024.
Come on now,Farrell picks the team,he obviously can take advice from coaching staff,he can also ignore it if it doesn't work in with his own opinion/choice.
Well it's what I am discussing.
But Sexton would also - obviously - have input.
Just like POC would have had input before him in the non-selections of, say, Coombes and Kleyn; an argument some of the self-same posters now writing off any contribution from Sexton, previously made for POC. Was he a Rasputin figure in camp?
The point is Farrell obviously picks the team. But he also obviously seeks the opinion of his coaches towards selection. That doesn’t mean Sexton is advocating for Prendergast. But it also doesn’t mean Sexton isn’t advocating for anyone.
There is no question Ireland need a figure like Greg Feek. I'd be doing everything possible to get him from the Blues and back to Ireland.
I really dont think 6-2 suits Ireland. Or to put it another way; having 3 backs on the bench suits Ireland better. Maybe Edogbo will tip that balance more in favour of 6-2.
Farrell opened the playbook in the summer so I would think It's the English players that will have gotten the greater insight.
“I’ve spoken to fellow Englishmen that there’s some cool stuff we can bring back to camp and that’s sort of the whole point, isn’t it? We can come back and say, ‘there are some bits we’ve done here that work when we have time away or during campaigns’. - Ben Earl
Good for you.
It's strange how the perception of Prendegast replacing Crowley is assumed to be because of poor form. The Autumn 2024 internationals against NZ he had a good first half then tailed off in the 2nd half before being called to shore. It was an average performance but certainly not poor. He was then very good against Argentina. Then when he went back to Munster i thought individually he was ok and i can remember one game he was excellent.
I am 100% sure that Farrell would ask his coaches their opinions, but the original point was that Prendergast's issues were a reflection on the "Farrell/Sexton coaching ticket" (there is no such thing) and the follow-up question was, wouldn't it be weird if Sexton thought Crowley was the better player but Farrell was picking Prendergast? I don't think that would be weird at all. You'll always have differing opinions within a staff but the buck stops with Farrell. And it's worth noting that Sexton had a lot more experience of playing and training with Crowley than with Prendergast.
For all we know, he's relentlessly bigging up Crowley and he's been undermining Prendergast's confidence and that's why his head is shot to pieces. Is that likely? Of course not, but that never stops any of the other bonkers theories we hear here.
Sexton calling the shots and putting Prendergast in the team fits a certain perspective very nicely. That does not make it true.
Ah, I've taken your post out of context without looking further back in the conversation.
My bad.
I don't think that's why Prendergast replaced Crowley - I think it's more the inherent weaknesses in Crowley's game were why Farrell has continued to consider other options (including Frawley & Byrne too).
Crowley played largely well when introduced on Saturday (certainly better than Prendergast had played), but it was very much more of the same from him. When the game is helter skelter and broken up, it seems to suit Crowley's skillset better.
It is clear as day at this point - 3.5 years since Crowley's debut for Ireland - that while Farrell saw enough talent there to elevate him from Munster's third choice 10 to the Irish squad, that Crowley is not doing something Farrell wants him to do to establish himself as the Irish 10.
To me, there is no other credible argument for why Crowley isn't getting selected. It's not about provincial BS or Sexton or Goodman's influence or anything else. It's on Crowley not delivering what Farrell wants of him.
He'll get another chance this weekend, and let's see if he's figured it out.
I honestly don't GAF who is the Irish 10, so long as one of them emerges as a viable top tier 10 we can plan around for the long term.
It's not strange at all. It's a straight up fabrication and the people saying it know that.
Just trying to reconsider Farrell's decision last year and their vocal support of it as anything other than a mistake.
The idea of a Farrell and Sexton conspiracy is tin foil hat stuff.
I mean, a figure like Greg Feek would help but we haven’t had Feek since 2019 and our scrum seems to have collapsed the last 18 months. It makes no sense given the players available, it’s clear they just don’t take the scrum seriously.
I think a 6-2 works perfectly fine for Ireland now as Ireland have many versatile backs, what we need if we are doing a 6-2 split is have 2 SR’s on the bench. That is Beirne and Edogbo.
I know the part about opening the play book but at the same time, it’s clear Ireland are evolving from that style so it might be questionable how much Farrell actually let on, he would be quite foolish if he gave them a carbon copy of the Irish game plan to work with. What is know for sure is Farrell will definitely have an insight into players strengths/weaknesses and what game plan works best against these players, weather that’s more (or less) than the advantage Ireland will get from his knowledge of the players is the real question here.
I assume everyone in the Ireland coaching set-up wants the best team on the field.
Whilst Prendergast has not been playing well of late and definitely appears to have low confidence , most of the people screaming and shouting abuse at him would be the same ones who in 18 months time if we were to arrive at the World Cup with Crowley on ~50 caps and his backup with only a handful of starts again tier 2 teams, will be screaming about how the Coaches had failed to build depth!!
As others have said , there are 16/17 games left between now and the World Cup. We absolutely MUST get games into as many options as possible - Some of those won't work out , some will need time to develop and that might mean we lose a few games as those players find their feet.
But honestly - If the trade off for getting to a Semi-final or Final of the World cup is a couple of 3rd place finishes in the 6N's and losing some Autumn international games over the next year or so , then so be it..
He didn't have a good first half against NZ. He was a non-entity. He passed the ball 8 times in that entire match. 8 times! He ran with it another 4 and kicked something like 4 or 5 times (including at least one straight into touch as I recall). Those are astoundingly low numbers for a flyhalf. And from what we have seen the exact opposite of what Farrell is looking for. Joe Molloy was discussing this and went back and checked all the ratings (for what they are worth) and he averaged out at a 5. It wasn't an awful performance, but absolutely was poor.
He had an excellent game for Munster in January, but he was having a torrid season there until then (not really his fault with the Rowntree fiasco).
England gone 6-2. Pollock starts, Freeman on the wing, strong team
So who do you think is the better of the two?
Do you think somebody else should get an opportunity?
That would be fine if we were doing that and I said that last year when Prendergast was struggling. If Farrell had said it was about preparing for the WC and getting as much experience into as much of the playing pool I dont think there'd have been half the furore.
But we havent. If we were why are we seeing Gibson-Park still playing everygame instead of combinations of Casey/Doak/Murphy/Blade to establish who is where in the pecking order?
I only picked scrum half because that was easy as its not decimated by injuries currently compared to prop/lock but even if fit we should have left the likes of Furlong/Porter/Henderson/Sheehan/Aki/Hansen/Keenan out of the 23's to give more minutes to McCarthy/Postelwaite/McCarthy/Edogbo/Baloucoune/Farrell et al.
But its only apparently being used for one position while relying on the usuals elsewhere. If we had spent 2 years going all in on expanding the pool before refining it in the World Cup run in I doubt anyone would be upset as it would be clear what was happening.
There isn’t a trade off, this is the mindset France had in 2023 and England in 2015…
Giving up games just to “learn about players” gets you nowhere in the end.
Seem to have gone down the exact same route as Italy/France in picking a mobile pack over a power one…in other words laying traps we will undoubtedly fall into.
