Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

While I am a little younger than you heading quickly towards 60 I also remember those bad days. I remember Nick Poppewell who was the outstanding prop of his day who went ages without winning with Ireland ( looking up his record now played 48 lost 32 . And that's only in the 90's. Ireland never finished out of the bottom two in the whole of the 90's . In fact they lost a test series to the world power of Namiba in 1991.( I looked that up) at the start of the professional era we lost 3 times to Italy.

I remember when we won our first triple crow in 1982 after 33 years without one. The joy. The 1985 team that won the triple crown and championship ( not a grand slam). That was the last bit of silverware until 2004.

In summary the past 15 years or so has been amazing. But we shouldn't forget how quickly that can change.

The IQ players is a point well made. Those you have mentioned have all unquestionably had a huge impact on Irish rugby.

No better illustration than JGP.

10 years on from Luke McGrath and Leinster havent produced another Test player at 9.

I agree; its unlikely Ireland will benefit as much as they have in the past. But that doesn't mean Ireland cant get better at producing players.

e.g. there is a far better structure in Irish rugby in comparison to Italy.

Italy of course also had to rely heavily on ITQ players (Parisse, Catrogiovanni and recently Brex & Capuozzo)

Personally I think Irish rugby in 2026 is in a very strong postilion to improve, and improve at greater speed than Italy, Scotland and Wales. English rugby is not in a good place and the French will always have internal strife because the clubs hold all the power. Eng & Fra will have quality players, but that doesn't always translate to their Test teams.

Irish rugbys power is the 4 Provinces. It's far from perfect, but its not the hindrance some try to make it out to be in comparison to the amount of players and clubs in England and France.

RWC - We'll just have to disagree! Roll on 2027!!

And Thanks for taking my post in the spirit it was meant!

Thats mad.

Somehow this needs to be corrected and the pool extended.

I do think that money plays a big part. at a young age the facilities and training and at an older age we are missing out on kids that mature later so dont get picked up at a young age. There isn't the space in the Munster academy for example. Take young Carney staring on the u20's he is playing with cashel as there wasn't space for him in the Munster academy. Hurling is so much better at big squads and keeping kids

I saw Ireland for the first time in 1957 v. France when I was 8. Ireland won but I can't recall the score. Then against England we lost and I know we lost and didn't score. My main memory is of a small boy being swept along by hordes of huge adults. I remember that game v Australia in '67 as if it was yesterday. First of all it was utterly freezing cold. The game was great though and only 3 points for a try then. Mike Gibson destroyed them in attack and defence. Oh for a new version. No one, not even the great BOD comes near. All teams evolve, decline, fall, rise again. The last 20 years or more have been truly great for Ireland rugby as a team and that is largely on the backs of firstly a fine Munster side followed by the Leinster talent factory. It will have fallow periods and fertile periods, Munster will rise again. Ulster seems to be on the up and Connacht have a great coach and a new range of talent. We are not capable of maintaining 2022 levels of player performances endlessly but we can still be competitive.

One major problem for rugby is that it is gladiatorial in nature. Huge physical contact, Not in Soccer. Not in hurling. Not in football. A soccer player can be 5'6" or 6'6" without anyone batting an eyelid. A 100kg soccer player has no particular advantage over an 80kg one. Not so in rugby. In order for team A to be safely competitive with team B there has to be some parity in the various positional players. A school with only 300 boys will never provide a rugby team. The numbers alone make it impossible. The vast majority of schoolboys attend schools which are too small to play the game. If you don't play rugby at schools level you are very unlikely to play in the post school years. Small schools also don't have rugby pitches. You can play football on the street, cricket, hurling (up to a point). You can't play rugby - except touch - on a hard surface. Therefore rugby will never be a mass participation sport in Ireland as the schools are the seed bed of the game here.