Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

His form so far this season has been very good. Now he might not get in with all the competition and that's fair enough but to suggest that he shouldn't be in contention on form isn't accurate.

I'd hazard a guess that he'll be in or around the match day 23. Should make this place interesting anyway.

That’s a bit disingenuous, no? In the same time as those RWC failures we’ve had successes in almost every other way we could have had successes. France haven’t.

Either way, France didn’t take a chance on youth. They selected players on merit who happened to be young. The competition in those spots wasn’t exactly fantastic and the talent these young half backs had was pretty exceptional. Very, very little of that is comparable to Ireland. So I’ve no idea why we are discussing France.

10 is vitally important in terms of planning for the next world Cup.

Right now Sexton is so far ahead of any of the other options it would be insane not to see can he be our starting 10 in France as his swansong. If he doesn't get that far fine but it is worth the attempt and his mentality won't be an issue. Clear as day to me that Carbery isn't the answer or Billy Burns or Carty. Three names right now look feasible and we need to develop two of them. Ross Byrne will never be Sexton but is ultra reliable , used to playing at the highest levels in Leinster and for me the ideal 3rd 10 but if he ends up being one or two with injuries then he won't let us down. As we speak the other two slots are Harry Byrne and Healy and that is a straight shoot out for me at the moment.

Decisions need to be made now in terms of development and gametime and that looks like it for me now, sometimes you have to make a call and get on with it. It will realistically take the next 18 months or so to bed down Harry and Healy and see who is better in an international context. Both are risky options but gut feel says they have high potential.

No doubt there will be a battery of Carty, Carbery and perhaps even Billy Burns arguments but that is the way I see it atm and suggest it is the way forward.

I would rather try and get Carty's kick average up allied to working on his consistency than trying to make Ross Byrne a more attacking threat.Healy/Crowley/H Byrne are no further along than Carbery was when he was being hailed as the 2nd Coming.For me its Carty 1 /Ross Byrne 2 after Sexton and let the kids develop or not to a stage where we know alot more about their ability to play at the highest level .

Beat Japan and Argentina

Have another 4 or 5 guys that become genuine contenders for the matchday squad when we come to play England/France/Wales in the 6Ns

Continued development of our attacking game

And a great atmosphere and full houses for the three matches (Sunday afternoon against Argentina isn't ideal though!).

As I mentioned previously I would genuinely rotate a few guys in against NZ. If Gavin Coombes can perform against NZ, he can perform against anyone. Give him and one or two others the opportunity and then come the 6Ns there will be no fears about picking these lads!

Winning a knockout game to progress to a S/F will have less impact on sponsors and the general public than winning the 6Ns.

I don’t closely follow French rugby, but guys in their 30s like Le Roux and Dulin are still starting for them. If memory serves they only had 4 or 5 guys under the age of 25 in their starting 15 against us in the 6Ns. Sure their age profile is younger than ours, but it should be given their resources. They are still putting out a team averaging in the region of the late 20s. That’s not that young.

The point remains the same though. They have the resources to give more opportunities to younger guys. We do not. They have special talents like DuPont coming through. We do not. They are still in a decade long rut when it comes to silverware. We are not. They were stuck for Test quality half backs for a long time. We were not.

Sure they are being ambitious. I’m ambitious every time I do the lotto. I had plenty of ambitious nights in night clubs in my youth. Ambition doesn’t mean much by itself. The simple fact is that this ambition has led to nothing so far. And no other country has taken that approach and seen it pay off. So why is there an assumption that what France is doing is right? What if they fail to win the 6Ns over the next few years and then fail to win the RWC? Would it have been the right approach then? If they are facing 15+ years without a trophy will people be applauding their ambition still?

France is the biggest, best resourced and wealthiest rugby nation on earth. They should be at the top consistently. They haven’t been and they still aren’t. We are far, far behind them in most aspects and yet have achieved a consistency they could only dream of. The two countries couldn’t be more different at the moment. So I don’t see any value in comparing the two.

And Argentina aside, all those teams were plenty good enough to beat us at the time as well. One of them even had home advantage. And against Argentina we had lost almost the entire spine of our team.

The simple fact is that there is no point looking back before 2007. We weren’t top 4 in the world prior to that.

2007 - coaches got the prep all wrong, not focusing enough on the actual rugby part of the rugby.

2011 - we had a head coach who had no idea how to play the game after the rule changes and IMO pissed away some of what should have been the best years in Irish rugby.

2015 - we lost far too many players to injury/suspension. I doubt many teams, if any at all, could have survived such an absentee list.

2019 - the first year that I would say we probably bottled it. The focus shifted to that tournament very early and when short term performances suffered a collective panic seemed to set in leading us to hugely underperforming.

There has been no single reason for our RWC failures and so no single solution will fix our record there.