Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I definitely think its a game which could go either way.

Scotland have selected nobody older than 31 and five players 21 or younger in their latest squad and have a pair of halfbacks at 28/29 who are both coming into the peak of their powers and were already ahead of our ageing pair in the impartial eyes of Gatland for the Lions.

They're actually building for the RWC and will have a nice age profile when they get there, we'll be old and unprepared by comparison. I still can't see it happening but if we're actually still playing a 38 year old Sexton for that game then I would absolutely favour Scotland. Even if we're not it'll probably wind up being another Carty/Madigan situation of an underprepared and inexperienced 10 getting exposed at the highest level.

Now is the time to prepare the successor to prevent this and it's so dispiriting to see Sexton's continued selection. We just all know how this is going to end come RWC time, we've seen it all before.

Scotland didn't have 2 games in the summer to look at new players due to covid.

As a result could could say there are behind us in preparation.

We used the summer to rest the older players and look at new players. We can build on that in this window and into the 6 nations.

They have to use this window differently.

Or alternatively, Scotland have been so poor for the last decade. No one over 31 is worth keeping around. Finn Russel may well be more durable than Sexton at this stage but he’s still always going to be flaky Finn. Gatland brought him as a break glass in case of emergency selection.

Scotland have turned so many corners at this stage that they’ve been around the block 20 times and ended up exactly where they started. It’s easy to make loads of changes if no one puts their hand up to stay in the squad.

I actually thought we had Wales in our group but the way we're playing atm and if we don't have an outhalf that steer a team around the field then I'd have a concern that Scotland could do one on us on a one off occasion.

Jesus Christ, how is this stuff still going!? Has it not been disproven a hundred times over at this point?

Lets look at it position by position:

Loosehead: Porter (25), Healy (34), Kilcoyne (32), O’Sullivan (25). Average Age: 29. Not a great age profile but we have moved Porter in here to massively improve it and have been actively at O’Sulliavan. We are short on props here so not much more we can do.

Hooker: Herring (31), Kelleher (23) and Sheehan (23). Average Age: 25.7. That’s a decent age profile, especially with Kelleher and Sheehan going so well.

Tighthead: Furlong (28), Bealham (30) and O’Toole (23). Average Age: 27. That’s a reasonable age profile for that position but again, we are short on props.

Lock: Henderson (29), Beirne (29), Dillane (27), Ryan (25) and Baird (22). Average Age: 26.4. Nothing wrong with that age profile at all.

Back Row: POM (32), Conan (29), VDF (28), Timoney (26), Connors (25), Doris (23) and Coombes (23) Average Age: 26.6. That seems a pretty decent age profile to me as well.

Scrum Half: Murray (32), JGP (29) and Casey (22). Average Age: 27.7. Casey has been fast tracked and that suggests that Doak may well be before too long too. We’re going in the right direction here even if the age profile could be better.

Out Half: Sexton (36), Carbery (25) and Harry Byrne (22). Average Age: 27.7. Sexton was deliberately left out in the summer because we want to develop the younger guys. Harry Byrne was identified from the very start of Farrells tenure as a guy he wanted to fast track and has been in Ireland camp at every available opportunity since Farrell took over. Again, we’d like a slightly better age profile but we’re doing what we can.

Centres: Aki (31), Henshaw (28), Ringrose (26), Hume (23) and Frawley (23). Average Age: 26.2. Also a decent age profile.

Wing: Earls (34), Zebo (31), Conway (30), Lowe (29), Stockdale (25), Keenan (25), Larmour (24) and Balacoune (24). Average Age: 27.8. A bit mixed here but still 4 guys 25 or under so really not that bad.

Tighthead and Scrum Half are the only positions that we don’t have more than 1 guy aged 25 or under. And hopefully Doak will come in to change that over the next 6-12 months. And of those players aged 25 and under there’s very few that we couldn’t see going to the RWC. Meanwhile of those aged 30+, there’s a good few that we can be sure won’t be playing for Ireland by then. The likes of Earls and Healy for example.

We don’t have the youngest squad going, but we’re doing just fine. Scotland, like Australia and France, haven’t exactly been lighting the world up over the last decade or so. Yet they seem the be the go to teams because “look, young ‘uns”.

Oh it was, wasn't it

In that case, don't mind me

In 2 years time there could be more new blood in the picture! It would not be weird to see some of the u20's from the last 3 seasons make ground. I thought that some of the players were outstanding. Some that come to mind would be Stewart at Ulster. Kendellen at Munster; Penny and Soroka at Leinster. Some players progress quickly while others take some time! Who would have predicted Hugo Keenan playing for Ireland?

The prop stocks are not too bad, imo. I believe that one of Milne or Wycherly will be a top level lh. On the other side, Sam Ilho is a good shout to be a good player. I was also impressed with Donnelly at Munster. Then there's Clarkson at Leinster . Injured at the moment, but he's been good when I've seen him.

In the backs Jennings looked superb as did Osborne. Finlay at Ulster was top class too. Overall, we have a good group of young players. It won't be long before they are pushing there way into the domestic squads.

People all seem to have left Marty Moore out of the list of props. I think in their mind they often seem to see an overweight and unfit guy when this is really no longer the case. He certainly is Ulster's starting T/H and is really blossoming in open play. His scrummaging is top class and he has really good hands in play. He is never going to be a Furlong rampaging over others but he should not be forgotten.

That's all fair enough, but the issue isn't with posters on Boards. In three years since coming home I don't think he's been involved in as much as a training camp with Ireland.

Whether he's just not rated or whether he dirtied his bib with IRFU, it won't be happening for him.

I would have thought his injury profile may have been part of the issue? He does the basics very well but is he the man you want who ends up being isolated out wide in defence? I know this is an issue with most props but I’d be particularly worried with Moore in open play. With the game seeming movingly towards a higher tempo, this might be holding him back?

What’s the latest with Jack McGrath? He had a few videos up last year where he showed his rehabbed hip motility which at one stage he couldn’t move past 30 degrees and he was getting 90 degrees of flex after.

I just have bad memories of Best and Ross finding themselves in midfield against Argentina in 2015 for one of their tries :o

Bealham has been in absolutely flying form this season anyway.

I think a relevant point on Scotland's win over Tonga yesterday, is 6 of their 10 tries were scored by backs.

When we scored 10 v the USA in the summer, only 3 of our tries were scored by backs.

In the 6 Nations, Scotland's backs scored 14 of their 18 tries. Ireland's backs scored 5 out of our 12.

I think that says a lot about how the two teams try to play.

I'm hoping to finally see some evolution in our attacking game this Autumn, but I'm not holding my breath.

He made a change in bringing POC in as forwards coach and there was a visible improvement. I may be being harsh here but as long as Farrell keeps his buddy Catt as attack coach, I don't see our attack improving.

I'm looking forward to this November window. I think we're going to learn a lot about where we're at as a team. The big question mark over Farrell is, was the England game a catalyst for a good run of form and a sign of things to come? Or was it a typical flash in the pan performance on the last day of the 6 Nations...

I don’t care who scores our tries. Against the Scarlets a few weeks ago all of Leinsters 7 tries came from forwards. That didn’t mean the backs weren’t performing. That was one of the better displays of attacking rugby I’ve seen in some time from 1 to 15. It was such a joy to watch.

Ultimately Ireland’s attacking game as a whole just isn’t good enough. And sure a lot of that is on the back line, but not all of it. If you look at the French game for example, our back line made more metres than theirs and beat more defenders. It was up front where France did the damage.

Our pack made 127m to their 184m. Our forwards beat 9 defenders to their 12. Their starting front row alone made 75m and beat 5 defenders. Ours made 2m and beat no defenders. All that from 68 carries from Irish forwards and 50 carries from French forwards. Ours passed 26 times to their 19 passes. To me that shows that France had a far more effective pack going forward. They were utilised less (less carries and less passes) but made far more inroads than we did. They spread their workload far more evenly with 5 of their starting forwards making double digit metres. Only 2 of our starting forwards managed that.

We need more variety in our game IMO. Too often we go through the same players. Stander was central to our carrying game up front, accounting for 46% of our packs metres, 26% of their carries and 19% of their passes. So shut him down and you’d have hampered our attack badly. Our front five aren’t being used much at all in an attacking sense. Against France our starting 1-5 made 8m and beat 2 defenders. Kelleher came off the bench and made 28m, beat 2 defenders and scored a try in 34 mins. We need more of that from more of our pack.

Sexton is the man in the back line that everything goes through. Make his life hell and our back line are screwed. So if we have a pack that plays a bit more ball, better and with more variety and then throw in a genuine second play making option into the back line then we could transform our attacking game. Leinster at the moment are so good because defences simply don’t know where the ball is going next. Ireland need to get at least closer to something like that.

Leinster also offloaded 17 times. The lowest metres run by any of the starting 11-15 was Frawleys 28m. The average metres made by those 5 players was 52m. We made 11 clean line breaks. We were keeping the ball alive and passing out of contact regularly. That’s why it was a joy to watch. The pace we looked to play at and the ambition we showed was great.

Regardless of the opposition the point I’m making is that the back line played well, whether they got on the scoresheet or not. And that it was a complete team performance from an attacking sense. Everyone was involved. Whoever ended up crossing the try line is pretty much irrelevant. We got into scoring positions playing positive 15 man attacking rugby.

Contrast that to Ireland, where we often have our starting front 5 making little or no impact on our attacking game beyond clearing out rucks etc. While that’s an important job, when there are 5 of your players on the pitch who defences don’t really need to worry about from a carrying perspective that makes the defences job far easier. We need to mix it up more. If we develop our attacking game, increase our try count, win games like the France game that we could arguably have won and still see the forwards scoring most of our tries, will we really care about the numbers on the jerseys?