Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822473#Comment_119822473

I note the way all of Cooney, Marmion and Blade made it onto the Lions tour ahead of Murray too. Despite him being so bad.

Cooney got more than a fair chance to prove himself. He had plenty of time in camp and couldn’t get past Murray. You do not put players in at international level to prove themselves. If they can’t do it on training, they are not going to do it on the pitch.

There has always been a suggestion that Cooney had attitude problems. Something probably reflected in his own comments. Two Irish coaches have decided he is not what they want. I can assure you, they have a better idea of what that is, than you or I. Given the success of Irish rugby under both of them.

Winning nominations for player of the year for your club. Isn’t and shouldn’t be a selection criteria for Ireland. Cooney stands out in Ulster, as the system runs around him. It makes him standout and win those nominations. However when he got into camps he couldn’t transfer that into what the Irish coaches wanted. Which would strongly suggest he is not the best scrumhalf in Ireland, he was just the best scrumhalf in Ulster.

phily2002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822515#Comment_119822515

I think coaches can get it wrong and definitely have favourites they like to select(just look at the last World Cup for a good example of this).

phily2002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822516#Comment_119822516

Yeah the team of the year isn't everything but I was just using it to show Cooney was consistently going well. The European nomination shows how good he was that year but still only got a few minutes from the Irish coaches

starkid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822520#Comment_119822520

yes playing well for your club shouldn't have any bearing on Irish selection.

peak boards.ie commentary.

Cooney is a very good rugby player who probably should had more caps. he hasn't. so be it.

but its disingenous to write the above.

for two seasons he was the best performing scrum half in Ireland. which was rewarded by callups and then disrupted.

he clearly had a personality clash with two of the most forceful figures in Irish rugby. It obviously coloured AF's opinion of him when he was assistant coach, and then once he spoke out when he was head, that was it.

Sexton and Schmidt are two of the most competitive animals to have ever been involved in Irish rugby, and for all intents and purposes are not the normal barometers of how players should be held. Sexton once made Mike Ross nearly cry by giving him a pubic foul mouthed rebuke in training for messing up a backs move. he's essentially a rugby maniac when he enters the field in training or games. Having played AIL with him i can tell you he's a scary operator in terms of demands. which drives alot of sports people. Schmidt was similar hence you never really saw the likes of Zebo etc. this is all well known by rugby people and regularly referenced by many players. Obviously Cooney was one. Cronin had similar shenanigans that saw him phased out. You had to be supremly talented or a cog to get away with it.

to paint Cooney as a bad egg or difficult on that character reference alone, is just nonsense. He's very unlucky and probably should have gone the Scotland route earlier.

People only have a glimpse of how competitive Sexton is when he is in a rugby environment (mostly through refs or head shakes). And the reverse is true, they don't know how jovial and good natured he can be as well off it. its the Roy Keane thing. Obviously if he was difficult he wouldn't be who he is. he isn't but If Cooney didn't play ball on it, well then he's lost the battle. Like Swareski in Racing metro giving Sexton a box.

off it, i'd imagine Sexton probably thinks Cooney is a very good rugby player. but yeah thats only one part of playing for IReland.

There is no Cooney debate to be had. he will never play for Ireland again.

Its just unfair to put all the blame on Cooney.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822535#Comment_119822535

Unquestionably they get it wrong sometimes, and I definitely believe that if you're a player who has delivered for them in a huge spot in the past then that builds a well of trust with them that will give you the edge in the future (like Conor Murray). I don't think they though knowingly refuse to select a player because of a provincial bias or because they just don't like the guy.

They're in the business of winning games.

You have to accept that the coaching team have far more info on the players than casual fans like us do. Beyond all the data and measurables, they know the people personally, see how they train, how they fit the team environment, how they can execute the game plan the coaches want them to play.

These are the reasons two successive Irish coaching tickets have decided Cooney isn't the guy the want.

phily2002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822520#Comment_119822520

The Lions scrum half's were brutal. They were a weak link on the team. Price was the pick of the bunch and he was pretty average. Murray struggled and was a shadow of himself. Davis was awful. I think in hindsight Gatland would select very differently.

irelandrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822587#Comment_119822587

The lions scrum halfs were bad, and still Cooney wasnt picked. Simmonds was picked at 8 so Gatland wasnt afraid to pick players who weren't internationals.

The fact is that 3 successful international coaches have not regularly picked Cooney and have picked Murray. At what point do you think that you are maybe overestimating his ability?

starkid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822618#Comment_119822618

Murray is clearly living off reputation. Gatlands treatment of him basically confirmed it. Selected as captain and then sort of like bombed out. Like POM on the last tour in terms of percieved ability against reality.

Obviously POM is aging like fine wine and would have a good stab at a lions call up if it was this year. Murray is aging like milk unfortunately, and his race is run. he's good for closing out a game, ten minutes thats about it.

if he's selected against Sa i think it shows we ahven't learnt our lesson about anything. Murray cannot play at that pace. We saw it in the Argentina game.

phily2002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822559#Comment_119822559

Yeah I agree, I don't think the coaches care about the provincial bias. They do what they think is right but Irish coaches also get it wrong a lot especially come world Cup time.

AdamD

Conor Murray has had a great career but he's been extremely lucky to earn some of the caps he received at the very start and very end of it. And if we're going with the argument that the coaches see them in training therefore know best and are infallible, we may as well shut the forum down, no need for discussion.

Interested Observer

I guess it's a rugby forum and people are discussing rugby players but I just can't get my head around why people are putting so much time and effort into discussing Cooney. Bar a catastrophic injury crisis, it is overwhelmingly likely he will never play for Ireland again. For whatever reason, the coaches don't fancy him. I think he probably deserved more of a shot over the past few seasons, I think experienced Irish players (in this case Murray, he shouldn't be near a starting Irish XV imo) get indulged a bit too much, I think coaches are indeed fallible and the appeals to authority you read on here are annoying. But we have some talent coming through in Casey and Doak and when you look to the future I know it isn't going to be Cooney, he's not going to play in the 6N, he's not going to the RWC, it's not happening.

McGrath is getting a good bit of discussion as well for his Leinster form, I think he's playing well but I read/heard someone say that he is a fantastic rugby player but not a fantastic scrum half. I personally think the coaches have gotten it right leaving him out.

Deramore

Per Murray Kinsella on Twitter: Sounds like Gibson-Park and Murray are the two Irish 9s against Boks. Also seems Baloucoune may get a big chance at 14 against the Boks.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822554#Comment_119822554

yes playing well for your club shouldn't have any bearing on Irish selection.

peak boards.ie commentary.

Completely making up what someone else said is also pretty peak boards.ie commentary.

Playing well for your club gets you in the squad - what you do when you get there is what gets you into the international team.

Interested Observer

Would be delighted if Balacoune started. He's absolutely class.

phily2002

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822679#Comment_119822679

Probably my fault this one lol.

I was originally responding to a poster who said Cooney was never the best scrum half in Ireland which I'd strongly disagree with.

However yeah it's a thing of the past now and the ship has sailed.

Interested Observer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822763#Comment_119822763

Don't mean to say it's anyone's fault or even there is fault to be apportioned. More just trying to say, as you do above, the ship has sailed. It's gone, over the horizon, it isn't coming back.

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822679#Comment_119822679

Personally, I don’t think McGrath would suit the Irish game plan at all, tbh. His pass accuracy isn’t where you’d like it to be and I think someone like Blade would bring more tempo.

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822707#Comment_119822707

I see Niallof9 is back again…

Shehal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822707#Comment_119822707

Someone should teach the English fans this!

ShineyShiney

I think Murray played well in NZ and has always played well internationally. His skill set would suggest that if he doesn't feature against the boks then who does he play against and ....Central contract

starkid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822833#Comment_119822833

sorry?

starkid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822707#Comment_119822707

and completely doubling down on being wrong another boards characteristic.

"Winning nominations for player of the year for your club. Isn’t and shouldn’t be a selection criteria for Ireland."

of course it should have bearing on selection, and it clealy did. he got a couple of caps. case closed, he's no longer good enough. its laughable that people on here constantly dismiss form. its something that AF clearly values. Look at Mack Hansen last season.

From the training photos it looks like Murray is starting. that will be a disaster

Great to to maybe see RB on the right wing but this was said last Nov and it proved inaccurate.

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119822587#Comment_119822587

Who would he have selected because it certainly wouldn’t have been Cooney. Murray was a shadow of his 2017 self. Though he still suited Gatlands game plan to a degree.

No coach picks a player on reputation. If anyone in camp was demonstrating they could do a better job than Murray. They would have been selected, they clearly didn’t. Which is what happened with Price for the Lions and now for Ireland with JGP. Cooney failed to do that.

starkid

loads of coaches pick players on reputation. Reputation builds trust and confidence. sometimes there is nothing wrong with it

nobody on here has issues with CM closing out a game. you'd back all his core skills.

However as a starter its a different story, seeing that his world class game is completely gone.

Clegg

This article makes some good points on Irelands game plan. We need to add a few more elements to our attack in order to not get caught out by opposition who will have analysed us thoroughly. We don't want to be caught in the same way as 2019 where our tactics had been worked out and we had no response to it. It'll be harder to do that this time round tbf. We're far more dangerous in phase play than 4 years ago which was too collisions focused.

I think it's fair to say that Ireland has the most sophisticated attack amongst the Tier 1 nations. It requires the forwards to be comfortable on the ball to make those drag back passes, but also the intelligence to identify when the pass is on or if would be more advantageous for subsequent phases if they take contact instead. Then the backs are required to make intelligent running lines and to know when they're the dummy runner.

There's a lot of moving parts to it, but in the New Zealand tour we saw it working incredibly well. We cut through their defence. Opposition analysts will have scouted our patterns extensively from last season Six Nations and summer tours. They'll know what's coming and will work to prevent it.

In the Six Nations you could see that some teams had already devised tactics to prevent Irelands forwards from making those drag back passes to a back in an arcing run. Doris was our primary passer in the forwards and his passing channel was getting flooded by rush defenders. We ironed that flaw out by developing more forwards as passing options. But that will have been sxouted thoroughly now as well.

https://twitter.com/CianTracey1/status/1587733308741484546?t=1L5XMZQPBwzWIxlw-vlwdA&s=09

Dubinusa

The Cooney discussion is interesting imo. Was he better than Murray? I thought he was. But, experience and knowing the systems, bedding in are important. Probably the reason why Murray has been selected.

Luke is not going to be selected. He's too inconsistent passing the ball. Marmion Probably should be in the discussion and Doak too. Coaching is not infallible! Look at us when we were ranked#1. We completely crapped our jocks and were dumped out of the world cup.

If Murray does start this week, I think Rassie will be very happy. Our attack will be slow and the boks can fill the defensive line. I think we lose if Murray starts but, that wouldn't be the worst thing. I wouldn't have Murray near the squad. He's well past his peak and he's probably going to fall behind Casey at Munster.

Doak should get a look v NZ this week, imo. He could make a run over the next year.

Former Former Former

Ireland ‘A’ v All Blacks XV (RDS, Friday, November 4th, 7.45pm)

15. Michael Lowry (Ulster/Banbridge) 1 cap

14. Jimmy O’Brien (Leinster/Naas) uncapped

13. Jamie Osborne (Leinster/Naas) uncapped

12. James Hume (Ulster/Banbridge) 3 caps

11. Jacob Stockdale (Ulster/Lurgan) 35 caps

10. Ciaran Frawley (Leinster/Skerries) uncapped

9. Craig Casey (Munster/Shannon) 5 caps Captain

1. Jeremy Loughman (Munster/Garryowen) uncapped

2. Dave Heffernan (Connacht/Buccaneers) 7 caps

3. Tom O’Toole (Ulster/Ballynahinch) 3 caps

4. Joe McCarthy (Leinster/Dublin) uncapped

5. Gavin Thornbury (Connacht) uncapped

6. Cian Prendergast (Connacht) uncapped

7. Nick Timoney (Ulster/Banbridge) 2 caps

8. Gavin Coombes (Munster/Young Munster) 2 caps

Replacements:

16. Diarmuid Barron (Munster/Garryowen) uncapped

17. Dave Kilcoyne (Munster/UL Bohemians) 48 caps

18. Marty Moore (Ulster) 10 caps

19. Ross Molony (Leinster/UCD) uncapped

20. Max Deegan (Leinster/Lansdowne) 1 cap

21. Caolin Blade (Connacht/Galwegians) 1 cap

22. Jack Crowley (Munster/Cork Constitution) uncapped

23. Calvin Nash (Munster/Young Munster) uncapped

Former Former Former

TLDR: Keenan, JGP and Baloucoune are playing against the ABs.

Former Former Former

So likely team for Saturday

Keenan, Baloucoune, Ringrose, Henshaw, Hansen, Sexton, JGP, Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, Ryan, Treadwell, POM, VDF, Doris

Herring, Healy, Bealham, Baird, Conan, Murray, Carbery, McCloskey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119823763#Comment_119823763

That's a really good side imo.

Didn't realise Ross Molony had been called up, but happy for him.