Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Yeah there’s been a good bit of talk out of camp in the last week about how Lowe had totally changed his approach to his prep and everything. He said himself he was told that elements of his game and prep simply weren’t good enough and he’s had to work hard on addressing those. Obviously the coaches feel he’s done enough on that front to warrant another look. They dropped him when he wasn’t good enough and they’ve selected him again now. So let’s see if there have been improvements there before making assumptions on it, because there must have been changes to go from being dropped to being selected again.

A good win at the weekend, some very good skills on display, we keep that mentality for the NZ game and we will be tough opposition for them. An important win considering we only barely beat them back in July

I think he was referring to CJ Stander nearly taking Pat Lambie's head off in his first game against his county of birth

and hoping James Lowe doesn't do something similar on Saturday

Edit: And holy sh*t Bundee Aki did it v Samoa aswell. So James Lowe is guaranteed to get sent off this weekend

Might stick a tenner on it

Controversial opinion, one of the best things for Catt/Farrells game plan was CJ retiring.

Absolutely ZERO to do with him being a project player or being from Munster. He gave his all and had a high workrate but was so limited. This always got found out against the better teams who knew you stopped Stander ball was never going to get past him, Sarries/England neutralised him so often. We wouldn't have scored that try against England, Lowes 1st try or Akis try is CJ had been in the same position.

I always much preferred a player who could do both a Billy V who created alot of tries by subtle offloads, a Picamoles. That is why I much prefer a ball playing backrow like Conan who can run over you just as quick as draw and pass to create a try for another player. Doris also is a much better ball player.

My abiding memory of CJ was him getting the ball I think against Scotland in our 22 with loads of space and a 3 on 1. The panic on his face as he had no idea what to do rather than draw and pass threw a wild miss pass to no one!!! That is why I think Coombes puts more fear into me than CJ as he can do both.

I agree Japan were poor, and their lineout sort of epitomised that a bit, even when we didn't compete we still won their lineout.

At the same time Japan got within 11 points of Australia two weeks ago, I haven't compared the teams, but the point I'm making is were Japan so poor because they were shaken by the way we played, expecially in that first 30 minutes, or were they just generally s***?

I'm not getting carried away with the result of the match. But it is worth noting that we've played against crap teams before under Farrell, but we've never played like that.

What has me excited is that over the last 12 months, we've been seeing that kind of rugby with gradually increasing regularity and consistency. We saw a bit v Scotland in the ANC. We saw a bit more v Italy. The England game was a big stepping stone. And in the Japan game we just took it to an all new level.

So it's clearly something that's been worked on and we've been gradually improving and becoming more comfortable with.

The result v NZ is secondary for me. I want to see us play exactly the same way we did v Japan and not revert to type.

With the skillset and mobility of our forward pack, if we can perfect that style and play it against every team, we're going to be a seriously tough team to play against.

I don't think there's any need to stick the boot into a guy who is retired and gone but I think it's fair to say he wouldn't be the most suited to the current approach, if it is to continue. And there's also always a fair bit to be said for a guy who will make double figures carries and tackles every game. He should have played 6 more for Ireland.