Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

IN fairies to Farrell though, he has pushed a lot of younger players through and into the test scene. He's also educated the fans to some extent about the pitfalls and pressures of doing that because it doesn't always work out, but he has earned the benefit of the doubt because he's shown both that he is loyal to veterans and not afraid to throw kids into the mix. The fallout over the Prenedergast/Crowley effort could have been a lot worse.

I agree with a lot of this FTD.

But with regards the front-row Munster scrum argument, I would argue you could only really say that has been a significant factor this season, imo. Prior to that, Archer held up more than manfully, having some of his best seasons for Munster into his last 2-3 years.

I think with the comparative success of Archer, they felt Ryan could produce similar and unfortunately it just hasn’t happened. (But it also goes some way to illustrate the folly of being blocked from signing an NIQ signing there).

And with regards Farrell, there is still some need to balance freshening up the squad with selecting for results.

We’ve seen with Wales the risks of continuing to select the older guard beyond their prime. I don’t expect Ireland to go the way of Wales, and I’ve previously defended Farrell against this comparison.

But imo, the selections last season were too much in than vein. I’m far, far more encouraged with the selections this season than last tho.

But the Archer selection still pointed to a lack of long term planning or development for the position. They knew he was retiring and was at a very advanced for a pro rugby player, and still, in his last season he got the largest share of mins at THP (40%) of all minutes, and the next highest share went to John Ryan (34%). Ronan Foxe, a highly promising academy tighthead, came off the bench twice for a combined 15 mins.

With regards to Farrell's selections in the 24-25 season, I think it's worth remembering they weren't specifically Farrell's selections, he was away with the Lions. While I've no doubt he had input, he wasn't explicitly the one picking the team, and I imagine there was a sense to keep some sense of continuity given Farrell wasn't there.

You talk about the provinces and which have been the most successful at producing players.

Take out the players that have come out of the "big 5" rugby schools in Dublin and how many players have Leinster produced?

There's a huge amount of money and resources going into these kids at schools level that the other 3 provinces could only dream of. Pretty much fully formed pro players by the time they hit the Leinster academy.

Fwiw I don't think Humphreys is doing a great job but with the riches that are/have been provided to Leinster, it's fair to say that the coaching has been the weak link.

That’s fine, but my point is “the scrum got destroyed anyway” element of the argument doesn’t apply in those seasons.

Fwiw, I think Farrell had a significant input in selections. There’s no way the Prendergast selection happens without his say so imo, for example.

A blood vessel issue apparently. Seems to be a bit of an obscure one

Oh, great another post on the mysterious "money and resources" only available to a handful of Leinster schools.

Stripping out the Big 5 schools, the current Leinster squad still contains all of the following players who came through Leinster player production pathways:

• Jerry Cahir
• Tadhg Furlong - 86 Irish caps, 9 Lions Test caps (3 tours)
• Andrew Porter - 79 Irish caps, 3 Lions test caps (2 tours)
• Brian Deeny
• Jack Conan - 59 Irish caps, 6 Lions Test caps (2 tours)
• Diarmuid Mangan
• Josh van der Flier - 79 Irish caps, Lions Tourist, World Player of the Year
• Cormac Foley
• Sam Prendergast - 15 Irish caps
• Ciaran Frawley - 13 Irish caps
• Jamie Osborne - 15 Irish caps, Lions Tourist
• Charlie Tector
• Jordan Larmour - 32 Irish caps
• Andrew Osborne
• Jimmy O'Brien - 11 Irish caps

Additionally, of the 23 players in Leinster's academy this season, 14 did not come through a Big 5 school.

Outside of Leinster, you can add the following players to the list:

• Michael Milne - 5 Irish caps
• Tom Farrell - 3 Irish caps
• Fionn Gibbons
• Sean O'Brien
• Diarmuid Kilgallen
• plus two Munster Academy players (Ronan Foxe & George Hadden
• Jack Aungier - 1 Irish cap
• Jordan Duggan
• Sam Illo
• Temi Lasisi
• Peter Dooley
• Paul Boyle - 1 Irish cap
• Cian Prendergast - 9 Irish caps
• Ben Murphy - 2 Irish caps
• Jack Murphy
• Finn Treacy
• Billy Bohan
• Aaron O'Brien
• Sean Naughton

That's still a player production track record that is better than any of the other three provinces.

Some big names in there alright

With the Lowe decision, we still had two really good players on the field in Rieko Ioane and Garry Ringrose - two guys who have 70+ international caps etc.

I think, by contrast, at LHP - Paddy McCarthy is a huge upgrade over Jerry Cahir (a player I really like btw, but McCarthy just offers a lot more at his best). It was a gamble that backfired as the player got injured (albeit the injury was to another foot, not the one he'd originally hurt), but once again, it wasn't a factor that cost us the game.

Yeah, but you can't go back with the benefit of hindsight and then query every selection call. It sounds as though Paddy McCarthy injured his foot in a contact injury, the sort of thing that could happen anytime. I don't think it's fair to monday morning quarterback the call on that basis.

Are we talking about selections 3 six nations ago. Good grief, watch your back moving those goal posts.