We were winning at half-time. I must watch the game back to see what he did/didnt do. The usual shuffle the ball to Aki and let him truck it up the middle didnt work. NZ knew what we'd do.
We were winning when he went off but a lot of the loss seems to be attributed to him, even though we had far more experienced players playing like drains that game.
Crowley was terrible in that game (and he was terrible) but Frawley managed to come on and be even worse.
Stakes just got higher. Pollock starts. Please, please dont lose this one.
Curry also starts.
ENGLAND (v Ireland): Freddie Steward, Tommy Freeman, Ollie Lawrence, Fraser Dingwall, Henry Arundell; George Ford, Alex Mitchell; Ellis Genge, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Joe Heyes; Maro Itoje, Ollie Chessum; Tom Curry, Ben Earl, Henry Pollock.
Replacements: Jamie George, Bevan Rodd, Trevor Davison, Alex Coles, Guy Pepper, Sam Underhill, Jack van Poortvliet, Marcus Smith.
Ollie Lawrence a big inclusion too. Freeman has been good the last two weekends in attack, but felt the Scots exposed him defensively quite a few times last week. Lawrence is a real handful though.
It's a strong pack - very dangerous backrow, and I think Chessum is an excellent player at lock. They were shite last week, and play a limited gameplan, but they're a seriously formidable side and will be very hard to beat at Twickenham.
Yep Chessum is an excellent all rounder. Its a very good backrow, still a bit surprised they've dropped Underhill to the bench.
Think McCarthy,Ryan; vdF, Conan, Doris is a better starting team to counter the pace and power of their backrow. Beirne and Izuchukwu on the bench.
They were always going to move Freeman back to the wing for this game. Which is disapointing. I thought Baloucoune could expose him at 13. Lawernce put some holes through Ireland last year.
I hope Ireland dont revert to the ridiculous kick heavy strategy used in Paris.
Yes, NZ were not great in that period. Now, Frawley came on and was outright awful but you will never, ever see me advocate for him to play another second at 10 for Ireland or Leinster. He can dine off his heroics in South Africa forever but he is never going to be a 10.
While every said here isn’t wrong, it doesn’t really change anything for me. We need to focus on our own game and what works for us, if we start picking a team to counter England’s style then we are already falling into their trap.
1. Loughman 2. Sheehan/Kelleher 3. Furlong
4. McCarthy 5. Ryan
6. Izuchukwu 7. Doris 8. Conan
9. JGP 10. Crowley
11 Lowe 12. McCloskey 13. Ringrose 14. Baloucoune
15 Osborne
16 Kelleher/Sheehan 17. O’Toole 18 Clarkson 19 Edogbo 20 Beirne 21 VDF 22 Casey 23 Prendergast
That team would give us every chance
My fear is our issues in regards to physicality are psychological, we had on paper a more powerful pack than France/Italy yet still got bullied, if that happens then that tells my the issue are more psychological in which case no selection change will solve.
Ollie Lawrence back in also is a big plus for them.
That back row are all big turnover threats and all carry hard. Bar George and Underhill that is a weak bench though.
It's what I'd pick but I don't think it matters if we can't get our forwards playing with more aggression and pace. They did it in fits and starts against Italy but it was by no means consistent.
I'd possibly ditch VDF from the bench and put a 5/3 not really sure.
Oddly enough Sexton has come out in support of all 4 potential out-halves. Now if Prendergast had turned into the new messiah at out-half Farrell and Sexton would be flogging him right now and all the way through the RWC. The only reason the below is being mentioned now is that all 4 are similarily average and this suits the narrative...
"Johnny Sexton says Ireland are trying to learn from criticism of previous World Cup cycles when they relied too heavily on just one out-half [him].
He says Ireland want to get more game time into Prendergast, Crowley, Frawley, and Byrne at 10"
I honestly don't think Sheehan has earned his place based on his performances so far this 6n. If we are serious about finding new options and combos it should be Kelleher to start with Stewart on the bench. JPG to start with Doak on the bench.
Yeah, coaches will say whatever nonsense to control the narrative. I find Farrell refreshingly honest for the most part, but he doesn't owe us the full truth of his selections and we are never going to get it.
Please enlighten me as to the benefit of sacrificing a shot at the 6 Nations (which we have proved we can win) for an appearance in the WC semi final (a tournament we are highly unlikely ever to win). I cannot fathom this line of thinking. I think people like me (who supported Ireland through barren decades) want to see our best team fielded all the time. If a youngster shows better than the incumbent, pick him then.
I agree with that, it doesn’t matter the pack of the top 2 inches aren’t there. Tbh, I haven’t been impressed with Ireland in any of the previous 5 games versus England so they will need to step it up this time.
Nah, 6-2 is the way to go. The more impact the better.
frawley at 10 is a nonsense proposition and he knows it. Utter gibberish.
It’s basically what Italy did with Lamaro/Zuliani and France did with essentially their entire back 5.
Now, is this a tactical decision to exploit an Irish weakness…or is this a panic selection after last weeks loss where they’ve said “let’s copy what other teams are doing”, we’ll know soon enough.
Intereestingly they’ve done away with the cringey named “pom squad”.
We have to work Steward into 1 on 1 situations, he's a massive liability with his tackling
Would be leaning towards the second option and reacting to last week for them. I personally don’t think Borthwick is astute enough to fully cop tactical weaknesses in opposition. We will see smash smash kick kick kick from England as we do most games. If Ireland can deal with that, I think we come out on top. Big ask though with how this Irish squad are currently playing.
no no, some posters on here are saying he was terrible so it must be true. they must be the special ones who have access to more info, tv angles or something because i certainly didnt see things like that but they probably just have a much superior knowledge of the game
none of that is 'established fact', its just absolute hyperbole from some people on here
as said before, sexton is working off what he learned from Wilkinson's kicking coach Dave Alred, who is generally accepted to be the best kicking coach out there. they both definitely have some more improvement and refining to do but i think they both are likely to come good soon enough. i also think SP's misses on saturday were more of a mental thing than anything.
Why do you think Farrell & Co haven't persisted with Crowley at 10 up to now?
continuity with JGP, trying out an alternative, feeling SP fits 'the system' better?
that wasn't the point i was making though, i was pointing out that some posters are repeatedly claiming that crowley was 'playing like a drain'/ rubbish/ in 'terrible' form/ had played badly against NZ last year etc, when it is simply untrue. i dont think anyone can dispute that he was average at best against NZ in 2024 and he was up and down for munster at times but there is also massive overexaggeration as to how poorly he was playing (SP and some of the other options get this treatment too) and the fact that he had went quite well against argentina is conveniently left out, as is how the attack against aus improved when he came off
a bit of reality when talking about all the options is required - none have quite hit the level they are certainly capable of getting to but none are/were as bad as they are being made out to be by some posters either
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.
To be fair, Podge, a lot of the context for his performance from that game is missing in this synopsis. We had a huge amount of handling errors, stupid penalties, and very poor scrum and lineout platform that all contributed to that, and very little of which can be attributed to Crowley.
I even remember him getting some flak on here for his contestables and re-starts which were actually really good that day.
I'm not arguing he was good that day; but I thought he played ok, and certainly better than the more recent performance vs NZ. But there was an awful lot more going terribly that day that meant he barely got any platform to operate from.
That game should've been the canary in the coalmine for Farrell. An incredibly poor NZ, that we'd have beaten by 2 scores at least in our 22-23 era, managed to scrape a win against us. It's been consistently downhill from there.
Our structure and basic skills have collapsed. We're not tailoring our gameplay to our players strengths, and seem to be lacking any creativity in unstructured play.
Like, you can be salty about something that happened a year and a half ago, and we can argue whether he was good, bad or terrible all we want, but what we know is;
So noting all of the above, it is not at all possible that maybe he didn't do himself justice?
What I will say is looking at their team it really doesn’t take a genius to see what England will try and do. Kick, chase, Ireland win the ball, gets smashed, one of the English BR’s/Itoje gets over the ball, wins turn over, kicks to the corner, set up maul, score a try/penalty…it’s a play book as old as time, they did the same thing to us in 2020 an 2022, would be very disappointed if we fall into the trap again…would be nice if, just for once, we outsmarted England…
So none of your reasons for why Farrell hasn't settled on Crowley are anything to do with deficiencies in Crowley's game?
Pollock, curry and Lawrence starting for England. Interesting how farrell will counter that.
so none of your responses are going to deal with the actual point of what i was trying to say?
What we also know is that Farrell has learnt from previous failings and decided he couldn't go into the next RWC with just one outhalf.
So he wanted to give time to another player.
It's been previously discussed here that Crowley hasn't been frozen out but has in fact shared similar game time with Sam.
I suppose it really depends on what narrative you want to make this week rather what you previously made.
