Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

It was a great win but Crowley arguably the weakest performance in the backline. Prendergast became a scapegoat in the Paris loss and the under whelming performance v Italy and now Crowley labelled as an integral part of a great win v England. Reality is I don't think either performance was bad or good enough to have changed the result either day in an substantial way. Clearly Crowley will now start the next 2 games if fit and then we move on.

Does Crowley need to improve yes absolutely and he will need to be better to win a tight game , the kicking mistakes and defensive misses yesterday could be a different story in a tight game. Right now he isn't a world class 10 or even close. Can he improve to the level we need, I don't know but he needs time now to consistently play at this level. Prendergast needs to light it up at Leinster now and perhaps the removal of pressure at an Ireland level can do this, he is very young still and we need to review in time.

Farrell I think can help by backing one starting 10 going forward and I think that will happen for the last 2 games. Really important one way or the other we go I into the WCUP with a settled 10. The balance is now definitely in Crowley's favour and I hope Farrell settles now but we do need more at 10 and I think potentially this could still be a problem come WCUP 2027.

Like many think there are signs that the natural brilliance that Prendergast has could yet blossom into a world class 10 but he like Crowley needs a lot of work. Whichever 10 ends up starting in a world cup quarter or semi we will see but one thing is for sure, we need more than are currently getting in that jersey. Right now Crowley is favourite for sure.

And without being a killjoy on the performance yesterday , loved every second of it but this England side has now produced two really poor performances, error strewn messes against ourselves and Scotland so a little bit of perspective helps !! Hats off again to JGP yesterday , rarely have I said a player put in a 10/10 performance but he was outstanding yesterday and it was a 10/10.

The fear this season was more about our own bad form. Don't think we were anything but confident the years we were going well.

There’s too much finality to these sort of snap judgments on players IMO. There are different game conditions that would suit a player with Stockdale’s physicality really well IMO. Form is fluid for some of these guys too, this thing of just permanently writing off certain players after a bad outing is totally unnecessary.

Nah, I think he’ll back TOB on the left again.

Completely agree, we saw it vs Italy and you’d have to think guys I’ll be anticipating it more from McCloskey now.

Osborne is well capable of an offload as well, could be a great combo for us.

Yeah I definitely wouldn’t object to that selection.

..

65 six nations matches by my count

hardly as simple as that.

McCloskey has had a good season. The likes of Lowe, VDF, Aki certainly have not.

pick the form players would be a better attitude.

I agree. Osbourne showed in the 2nd half what he can do at 13.

a midfield of McCloskey-Osbourne is both beastly and very skillfull.