Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

yea, then the backrows. no hit or push at all, til the ball is fed.

That would almost be a rugby league "scrum"

Good piece here how Ireland adopted the two knee set-up at scrums.

https://www.otbsports.com/rugby/the-tight-5-neil-treacy-on-irelands-subtle-scrum-tweaks-1158300

So it's a straight road to the 6Ns now.

The pack picks itself for next week given the uncertainty around Henderson's fitness. Centre and Wing spots are potentially up for grabs.

My predicted matchday 23 is

Porter, Kelleher, Furlong, Beirne, Ryan, Doris, Van Der Flier, Conan

Gibson-Park, Sexton, Conway, Henshaw, Ringrose, Baloucoune, Keenan

Sheahen, Healy, Bealham, Henderson/Baird, O'Mahony, Murray, Carbery, Earls

Could see Aki at 12 and Henshaw at 13 and Conway at 14 and Earls or Larmour at 11.

I know it's Wales and I may regret saying this, but that team could do some serious damage to the Welsh.

I'm getting serious pre-England 2019 vibes from the manner in which everyone is writing off Wales. We've seen all of this before. We hype ourselves up and write off the opposition and we're brought crashing down to earth.

Yes they're missing huge experience in Owens and AWJ, and their tight 5 could be a weakness for them. But they fronted up against South Africa without them.

Jenkins/Basham/Wainwright is a very strong backrow. Jenkins and Basham are both traditional 7s and breakdown specialists and if they can slow our ball down and allow their defence to generate linespeed it could cause us real problems. So much of what we did well v Japan and NZ was built on the quick ball we got. If our ball is slow, I think we'll really struggle. There's not much between Faletau and Wainright right now.

Bar North, they have a clean bill of health in the backs, and it looks like Pivac will go for Adams at 13.

9-Williams 10-Biggar 11-L.Williams 12-Halaholo 13-Adams 14-LRZ 15-McNicholl

That backline could hurt anyone. Williams at 9 is a class player. Biggar and McNicholl are in top form. And Halaholo, Liam Williams, Adams and LRZ are very dangerous.

So people need to tone it down when it comes to writing Wales off. People saying we should beat them comfortably either aren't living in the real world or haven't watched rugby over the last 15 years. This is Wales in the 6N. The regions' form in Europe is irrelevant as we all know. The Welsh have their backs to the wall. They've been written off by everyone. They're going to come over here and absolutely hurl the kitchen sink at us. I could very easily see them catching us off guard here. We'll need to be 100% on it to win.

Bar the tight 5, on paper there's actually not much between the 2 sides

Adams can play 13 and he has done for Cardiff. He was named to start there v Fiji in November but had to pull out. Pivac also hinted at him playing 13 at the launch.

He's a very intelligent player, reads the game very well, runs good lines and is a strong defender. I'd be more worried with him at 13 than Tompkins.

No, not if Carbery is fit.

Carty should absolutely be given his chance.

What has Carbery done to be guaranteed a spot and walk straight back in having not played in weeks?

Carty has shown far more than Carbery has in recent times and is far less injury prone. You just can't count on Carbery to be available.

I love how people say "someone needs to put their hand up for the 10 jersey". And then when someone actually does that, we want to pick a guy who has shown nothing in 3 years, hasn't played in weeks and is constantly injured.

Whatever else we can say about Carbery, it's very clear the national coaches see something in him that they don't see in the others.

As for Carty, he's done plenty in the last couple of months to suggest he should be given a go. But equally he's done plenty to suggest he shouldn't.

If Carbery is properly fit, I'd say he'll get the nod.

Might have gone unnoticed, but Will Connors suffered another knee injury last night. It was his first game back from another injury. The severity hasn't been assessed, but it was bad enough that he had to be taken off limping heavily.

He wasn't a part of the Ireland squad due to his previous injury but he was arguably Farrell's first choice openside a year ago when he was fit. It's a blow that he's probably going to be out of commission for another while.

Jim Demp is right. Cathal Forde should play!

Seriously, it will be a tough encounter. It will be tougher if Furlong misses out! Wales somehow play well when representing the national team. The regions form is not a guarantee of success for us. I think we'll win, nut only by a score. Something like 20- 13.

If Furlong and VDF don't play, I would go with

1. Porter

2. Kelleher

3. Bealham

4. Beirne

5. Ryan

6. Doris

7. Timoney

8. Conan

9. JGP

10. Sexton

11. Balacoune

13. Henshaw

13. Ringrose

14. Conway

15. Keenan

16. Sheehan

17. Kilcoyne

18. T'O'T

19 .Baird

20. POM

21. Murray

23. Carty

23. Larmour

This is with the expectation that Henderson is unavailable.

So were Bealham and Aki, should they not be in the squad then either?

Was it Jack Carty's fault that his teammates made tons of handling errors, that Hansen didn't feel like tackling, that refs didn't award clear penalties or that his front row got murdered in the scrum in each of those games?

Carty was a big reason why they were ever in a position to win those games in the first place.

Do you really think if Carbery was at 10 they'd have won those games, with his team getting beaten in every aspect?

Blaming Carty for Connacht losing to Stade and Leicester is like blaming him for the Japan defeat

No! That should be on the coaching team!

I've never blamed Carty for the Japan defeat. To be honest it was news to me that he got the blame until OTB started making a big deal out of it a few weeks ago. Although in fairness 2019 seems like 20 years ago so I could be misremembering the reaction to that match.

Nobody has ever blamed Carty for the Japan defeat.