Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Bloody hell, the guy has literally just come back from the guts of 2 seasons out. Give him a chance before he is categorised as not at this level.

We very very rarely have an athlete like him available to us.

I’d have kept Izzy and Edogbo in place, not that I think either went great last week but just because I think both are worth a proper look. Edogbo only got 10 minutes from what I can remember last week.
Loughman lucky to keep his spot I think.

It should be apparent that Joe McPenalties should be dropped and replaced by Izzi. "Big Joe" hasn't really put in a good performance in quite a while, and has some absolutely dumb moments. Meanwhile Beirne is the player of tournament for the Lions.

Ryan is much more of a TH lock than Joe, and Izzy made a huge difference in the lineout.

It's not Izzy's problem that Andy wanted him wide in attack, he's much better in the tight exchanges.

Look, I see a lot of what you're saying here DBK1, but FFF has a history - which I won't be quoting, but examples abound - of hammering anyone who is critical of Farrell, but equally being able to dish out some hefty criticism of their own.

Today's "I doubt anyone in the Irish management cared that [Milne] moved" may not be the worst example, but it's getting towards disparaging of a player who we had to call on not 2 weeks ago… and indeed played well and scored a try.

The guy's only just turned 27, LH isn't a position of great strength for us, and he'll absolutely think with regular gametime, he can move up the pecking order and try get himself into a RWC squad.

Like we're often told that Farrell has promoted guys from way down provincial pecking orders, but now we're told to doubt if any of the management cared he moved?

I just think it's another example of some fairly obvious hypocrisy tbh.

Milne is easily our best carrying loosehead. I've seen some great performances from him at scrum time too, so it appears that these guys are judging a much younger Michael Milne who wasn't changed a day since he was at Leinster..

Why aren't you so concerned about "hefty criticism" or mean words said about other players?

Just in the last few hours we've had some great insights from some of your learned colleagues like "Joe McPenalties", people who back Sam being described as "the proud dad of the ugly child", and a "beanpole with no pace" to cite just three very recent examples.

Not a peep out of you about this though, and yet you've the nerve to accuse others of hypocrisy?

So you think Andy is infallible

At what point did I say that. I'm not reading a single word of the rest of this post, what tedious horseshit.

This is peak Boards post right here.

Here, @aloooof is a pretty prime example of the utterly blinkered constant negativity levelled at Andy Farrell which you don't seem to believe exists:

• Landed Leinster with a HUGE wage bill by making 2nd and 3rd string players into internationals. - He's picked the best players who he deems available for selection, regardless of where they play. Leinster just so happen to be far, far better than the other provinces at producing players for the last 15 years or so. You weren't objecting I'd say to him selecting 3rd choice Munster 10 Jack Crowley in November 2022.
• His handling of the 10 situation boggles the mind.
• Tiny squads of old men, who just can't manage to get dropped - no matter how bad they are. - "Tiny squads?" - the Irish squad is broadly the same size as any peer squads. He has fairly frequently dropped and rotated under-performing players; just this week he dropped Prendergast who was poor last week ffs.
• Got kicked out of England for poor management. http://irishexaminer.com/sport/rugby/arid-30711429.html - Oh yeah, the bastion of sensible decision making England, that's who we should look to for inspiration.
• And this is probably his worst flaw - ends every sentence with "etc". - Don't even know where to go with this utter nonsense.
• Plays kick chase and on ball every second game, because …. reasons. - Yeah, imagine doing something crazy like changing your tactics for different opponents, as though there might actually be different approaches to play the game? That's crazy.
• Surrounds himself with "coaches" who have little to no experience.

Some of the posters I'm talking about have tens of thousands of posts on this very forum, so, no, they don't just disappear again outside international windows.

It is utterly hypocritical to call out a poster for what you believe are harsh words about one player, but ignore it when multiple others do it about other players.

Here, @aloooof is a pretty prime example of the utterly blinkered constant negativity levelled at Andy Farrell which you don't seem to believe exists:

I've never said it doesn't exist.

What I've said is legit, reasonable criticism often gets conflated with it.

It's a completely different argument.

If you play your cards right and you can be likened to Richie McCaw, theVersatile. ;)

Ringrose looked hurt at the end last week, could be the reason for Frawley. Izzy is unlucky but Timony has looked one of our best players on the field. He deserves another appearance. I hope VDF shoots the lights out per Lowe. Lowe was one of the best players last week, for all his speed issues, he is a beast to take down and makes more yards in contact than our forwards. That’s extremely difficult to replace, himself and Balanchine and a potentially fearsome combination. I’ll be looking at this though my fingers though. I’m still not sure how we are playing, first half last week we played ball but got nowhere and kicked by numbers, like a u16 team playing against bigger guys.