Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Crowley to score 10+ point @ 3/1 on paddypower is free money

That doesn’t matter - the national team is more important. Particularly given he’s 34 now, his minutes likely need to be managed to make sure he’s fit and sharp for Ireland first and foremost.

this is interminable with Ireland. Yeah, there aren’t lots of players to have a look at but there is also a seeming resistance to developing players in non entity games. Beirne playing against the likes of Japan is both stupidly risky and counter productive. Then we’ve to assume Baird wasn’t ready for real test rugby til he was 26 and O Mahoney retired.

Fantastic second half from the U20s today. Very impressive control and breakdown work, but also a very obvious esprit de corps. O Leary and Carney were very good in the centres, Carney is one of those elusive low centre of gravity guys who looks very dangerous.

Some of this stuff is utterly mental.

Josh Neill couldn’t have been capped against Japan - he didn’t even finish secondary school in South Africa till December.

Beirne likely played in that game because if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have had any match sharpness to play the following week v Australia. He had played one game for Munster coming in to that off the Lions tour and only played 2 mins before getting the red v NZ.

Tom Wood needs to be called up immediately 🤣

Club first

Fair enough, but this is a fan’s perspective and one that explains Farrell’s torrid time on this board regardless of results, but it very much is not reality on the ground.

The needs of the national team come first, always. We might not always like it but maybe it’s time for people to accept it. It didn’t start with Farrell and it didn’t start with Beirne. They are all Ireland players who also play for a province, and this is especially true for centrally contracted players.

Munster are not in the position to rest & rotate him in & out

Again, this might be true but your anger is misplaced. It is not the fault of anyone in the Irish management that Munster have not developed enough quality players going back 15 years.

But is it true? Munster have Ahern, Kleyn, Edogbo and Wycherly in the second row and decent options at six. Is it that Munster are not in a position to give him a rest, or just don’t want to?

And if they can but just won’t, how is that any different to Ireland? The answer is it isn’t different, it is just your perspective on what takes priority in club vs country.

Before people flip out, I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it just is what it is, and it explains a lot.

It’s neither, it’s perspective.

I’m self-aware enough to know that if Leinster fell off a cliff in terms of player development for ten years and we had no players in the Ireland team, my own perspective might shift.

it’s human nature. People won’t really support a team because they’re supposed to or because Vodafone say they should. They have to feel it and a lot of people haven’t felt it for a long time.

It's also posible to be Club first, still be a huge Ireland fan, and have legitimate criticisms of Farrell. But, pretty often, that gets lumped into the "Farrell's torrid time" bucket.

Framing 50HX's following comment of "Munster are not in the position to rest & rotate him in & out" as "anger" is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about here. Ridiculous.

And if "the needs of the national team come first, always" then the "David Humphreys development tax" should be something to celebrate, as being so reliant on one Province in the long-term is far from ideal. Right?

But lets examine this:

Munster have Ahern, Kleyn, Edogbo and Wycherly in the second row and decent options at six. Is it that Munster are not in a position to give him a rest, or just don’t want to?

You've completely omitted the context of injuries in all of this. Kleyn and Wycherley both essentially missed a full season out injured. Edogbo missed nearly 2. And Tom Ahern, unfortunately, has regularly been injured.

You can't remotely say anything close to that of Beirne. We've even had to rely on Gavin Coombes in the 2nd row at times.

So, for large spells, it absolutely was the case that Munster were not in a position to give him a rest.

And to add - during all of that time, Beirne was one of the best 2nd rows in the world. Whatver about now, but you'd be hard pushed to suggest his performances over the last 4 years suffered from playing so many minutes.

surely everyone always thinks their own perspective is right? That doesn’t make it objectively “right”

Is there a match day thread somewhere?